


•K\ 



*H 









V*r* 



•^«v. 




9 - I 



TV-*-'- "/'* ^ 










filass CT-2--T S 
Book, 6-7T^S5" 



RNWWS KC>a\\\N\ssxvwJ 



THE '* i, I 



1/ 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



Hon. WILLIAM PARKINSON GREENE. 



AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



ALUINI OP THE NORWICH FREE ACADEMY. 



JANUARY 25, 1865, 



BY 



ELBRIDGE SMITH, A.M., 

.. 

PRINCIPAL OF THE NORWICH FREE ACADEMY. 



CAMBRIDGE: 
PRINTED AT THE RIVERSIDE PRESS. 

1865. 



/<v- 



to to 

^ cry 



"3 



■% lo 2.3 

CI 

Justum et tenacem propositi virum 
Non civiurn ardor prava jubcntium, 

Non vultus instantis tyranni 

Mente quatit solida, neque Auster, 
Dux inquieti turbidus Hadrian, 
Nee fulrninantis magna manus Jovis ; 

Si fractus illabatur orbis, 

Irnpavidum ferient ruina?. 

Horace, III. 3. 



ADDRESS. 



Alumni of the Norwich Free Academy: 

Ladies and Gentlemen, — We have met this evening 
to manifest our regard for the memory of one who, for 
forty years, was one of the most marked and influen- 
tial men in this community. The motives which have 
prompted you to this commemorative service do you 
honor, not only as graduates of the Free Academy, but 
as citizens, as men and women. Good lives are not 
so common that we can afford to permit those that are 
preeminently so to pass from among us without paus- 
ing to notice the elements of their excellence and 
derive from them the lessons which they seem specially 
designed to impart. The life of every man has been 
declared to be a plan of God ; even Shakspeare has 
said, — 

" There 's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough-hew them how we will." 

And a greater than Shakspeare has said, "Ye are God's 
husbandry, ye are God's building." True lives, it is no 
exaggeration to say, are divine ; they present the linea- 
ments of that divine image in which man was first cre- 
ated ; they enlarge our ideas of the capacity of our 
nature ; they stimulate and encourage, they rebuke and 
warn us. Such were the effects of the life and teach- 



4 ADDRESS. 

ings of Socrates upon the gifted but wayward Alcibi- 
ades. " Whenever I heard Pericles or any other great 
orator," he says in the " Banquet," " I was entertained 
and delighted ; I felt that he had spoken well ; but no 
mortal speech has ever excited in my mind such emo- 
tions as are kindled by this magician. When I hear 
him, I am, as it were, charmed and fettered ; my heart 
leaps like an inspired corybant; my inmost soul is 
stung by his words as by the bite of a serpent ; it is 
indiamant a ^ its own rude and iarnoble character. I 
often weep tears of regret, and think how base and 
inglorious is the life I lead. Nor am I the only one 
who weeps like a child and despairs of himself; many 
others are affected in the same way." 

History has been defined to be philosophy teaching 
by example. But history is made up largely of biogra- 
phy. The lives of communities and States, which are 
recorded in history, are but the resultants of the lives 
of the individuals that compose them; and the direc- 
tion and character of these composite lives which we 
see in communities, in States, and empires, in the 
whole course of human history, are determined by com- 
paratively few individuals, who become, as it were, the 
file-leaders in the great march of human events. What 
is the secret of that reverential awe which we experi- 
ence as we enter the sacred shades of Mount Vernon ? 
Is it merely that there are entombed the remains of a 
statesman and a warrior ? Or is it rather the feeling 
which moved Lord Erskine to write to Washington 
while living : " I have a large acquaintance among the 
most valuable and exalted classes of men ; but you are 
the only being for whom I ever felt an awful rever- 



ADDRESS. 5 

cnce. I sincerely pray God to grant a long and serene 
evening to a life so gloriously devoted to the universal 
happiness of the world." A Chaldean sheik went out 
from his native country, not knowing whither he went, 
and became the father of the faithful in all succeeding 
generations. A single life, of short duration, spent 
mainly among the hills and valleys of Galilee and 
ended in ignominy at Calvary, has become the light to 
lighten the world. But not to multiply examples, how 
frequently do we find that one true life has moulded 
the life of the entire community in which it was passed. 
Who that has witnessed the enthusiasm awakened 
by the appearance in public of such men as Josiah 
Quincy and Benjamin Silliman, has not felt how large 
a portion of their lives has been breathed into the 
academic and civic life with which they have been 
associated ? 

Such is the character of the life which we are this 
evening met to commemorate, — a life so related to 
this whole community as to constitute an important 
element of its history, and so related to you in par- 
ticular as to command your gratitude and love. 

William Parkinson Geeene, the second son of Gar- 
diner* and Elizabeth Hubbard Greene, was born in 
Boston, the 7th of September, 1795. His father was 
one of the most eminent merchants of his time, and is 
still well remembered in Boston as one of the leading 
financiers and capitalists of the first quarter of this 
century. He received his elementary education in the 
schools of Boston, and principally under two teachers 
whose names have become historic in the State of Mas 

* See Appendix, Note A. 



6 ADDRESS. 

sachtisetts. These were William Wells and Jacob A. 
Cummings. Mr. Wells was of English birth, and was 
for a time connected as a student with the dissenting 
college at Hackney, for which he was fitted under the 
instruction of the celebrated Gilbert Wakefield. His 
father was an intimate friend of the great philosopher, 
Joseph Priestley, and it was in consequence of the 
father's attachment to the fortunes of that great man 
that both father and son removed to this country in 
1793. He completed his education at Harvard College, 
and was for many years one of the most distinguished 
teachers of Boston. He was also the senior partner and 
founder of the well-known publishing firm of Wells & 
Lilly. Mr. Cummings was well known not only as a 
teacher, but also as an author. His school-books were 
extensively used in New England, and he also is well 
remembered as the senior member of the publishing 
firm of Cummings & Hillard. Under these teachers 
Mr. Greene was fitted for Harvard College, and en- 
tered the Freshman Class in 1810, — the class that 
enrolls upon its catalogue the names of President 
James Walker, Dr. F. W. P. Greenwood, the historian 
Prescott, with whom he was for a time a room-mate, 
and others who have attained honorable distinction in 
Church and State. The college life of Mr. Greene was 
not distinguished for brilliant scholarship, though he 
gave abundant evidence of possessing decided ability. 
He was but a boy when he entered college, and he 
graduated at an age when his collegiate course would 
more profitably have been commenced. He had not, 
as yet, begun to take a serious view of life ; and, though 
he was never " vicious or perverse," the playful and 



ADDRESS. 7 

sportive elements of liis character, which were so 
prominent in his mature life, were probably the ruling 
forces of his nature at this period. There were not 
wanting, however, instances in which his higher pow- 
ers shone forth with something of that lustre which 
marked his manhood. 

On one occasion, in consequence of his frequent 
absence from college duties, he was summoned to 
the room of one of the officers, to receive what is 
called, at Harvard, a " private," that is, an admonition 
or warning against further neglect of duty, attended 
with some loss of rank. On receiving this admonition, 
which was given by a teacher whom he much respected, 
he bowed respectfully, and simply remarked, " I have 
nothing further to say, Sir, than that I shall endeavor 
to do better in future." From that time to the end of 
the academic year, he was not absent from a single 
college exercise. At the expiration of the year he 
received another summons to appear before the whole 
faculty. This summons he obeyed with alacrity, con- 
cluding that his fidelity was to receive a proper recog- 
nition. But what was his surprise, on appearing before 
that august academic body, to find that he had been 
summoned to receive a " public," that is, a still stronger 
censure for neglect of duty, together with the startling 
announcement that a letter had been sent to his father. 
This surprise, however, did not throw him from his 
self-possession, but merely roused him. Calling re- 
spectfully upon the President for a statement of his 
deficiencies, he inquired if there had been any regis- 
tered against him since he received his first admonition. 
On examination it was found that there were none 



8 ADDRESS. 

since that period. The boy of seventeen then pro- 
ceeded to express his views upon the subject with a 
freedom and earnestness quite unusual in the sittings 
of that body ; and those who know the bearing of Mr. 
Greene when he was thoroughly roused can easily un- 
derstand that the faculty on that occasion received a 
much more impressive admonition than they gave. 
The result was that the letter to his father was re- 
called. 

On another occasion he was sentenced to go over 
again the studies of an entire term, in consequence of 
his failure at the regular examination. He presented 
himself to the gentleman to whom he was sent to 
make up these deficiencies, and requested, if agreeable, 
that he might be permitted to recite in one branch 
each day until the work was completed. His request 
was granted. At his first interview with his tutor he 
continued his recitation until the latter, becoming 
somewhat weary, inquired of him how much he had 
done. "The whole, Sir," was the reply. The next 
day he met his teacher again for recitation in another 
branch, and with the same result. At the close of the 
first week the entire work of the term was dispatched. 
He was dismissed by his tutor with a most emphatic 
"Well done!" 

Leaving college at the early age of nineteen, he had 
made no choice of a profession, nor formed any serious 
plans for his future life. It was rather in compliance 
with his father's earnestly expressed desire that he 
should do something, than from any feeling of choice 
for the profession, that he decided to begin the study 
of law. On making this decision he entered the office 



ADDRESS. 9 

of his brother-in-law, Samuel Hubbard, Esq., — an office 
which had acquired the most lucrative practice that 
had been attained by any law-office in New England 
up to that time. Charles Jackson, one of the brightest 
names in the judicial history of the State, had just 
left this office for a seat on the bench of the Supreme 
Court, a position to which Mr. Hubbard was also ele- 
vated some years later. It was while engaged in the 
study of his profession that an event occurred which 
had a marked and probably a decisive influence upon 
his whole future life. While engaged in an innocent 
game of chance with several companions, he made use 
o£ several profane expressions, which induced one of 
his friends earnestly but kindly to reprove him. His 
feelings were at first aroused, and he was tempted to 
reproach his friend; but, controlling himself, he thanked 
him, and promised to consider the subject. He did 
consider it, and came to the conclusion that his friend 
was right and he was wrong. This incident led him 
to a careful self-examination, which induced him to 
retire for several months from the city, and to with- 
draw himself almost wholly from society. He applied 
himself, however, closely to his law-books; and on his 
return to his father's house he found himself, to use 
his own words, " an altered man." It was about the 
same time that an older friend, the gentleman for 
whom he was named, suggested to him that he had 
talents which might make him a man of influence in 
the world. This suggestion also had its effect. These 
incidents of his early youth are of interest, as showing 
the nice susceptibilities of his nature and his readiness 
to heed admonition or reproof. His self-respect was a 



10 ADDRESS. 

marked feature of his character, but he always felt that 
he never respected himself so truly as when he cor- 
rected his faults or made amends for his errors. 

After completing the study of his profession, he be- 
came a partner with Mr. Hubbard, and applied himself 
closely to the performance of its duties. His mind was 
remarkably well adapted to these labors, and he made 
rapid progress in the acquisition of professional power. 
He could not, however, content himself merely with 
the practice of his profession. To be merely a lawyer, 
though he were a great lawyer, would by no means 
satisfy the demands of his nature ; he must also be a 
man ; nor could he satisfy himself with anything short 
of the highest type of manhood. 

That we may be able to understand more completely 
the character which we are considering, it will be 
necessary to pause for a moment and notice the pre- 
vailing influences under which it was formed. It ap- 
pears to have been a law of the Homeric poetry that 
the arming of the hero for battle should form a part 
of the description of the battle itself. In this, as in 
all other respects, the great father of poetry has only 
followed a fundamental law of the human mind. We 
delight to dwell upon every circumstance of splendid 
preparation which contributes to fit the great man for 
the scene of his glory. We delight to watch, fold by 
fold, the bracing on of his Vulcanian panoply, and ob- 
serve with pleased anxiety the leading forth of that 
chariot, which, borne on irresistible wheels and drawn 
by steeds of immortal race, is to crush the necks of 
the mighty, and sweep away the serried strength of 
armies. And especially do we delight in this when the 



ADDRESS. 11 

conflict is moral and not material. Jesus, inquiring 
of the doctors of the law in the temple, and Saul of 
Tarsus, at the feet of Gamaliel, are objects of far 
greater interest than Achilles girding on his divine 
armor, or Hannibal at the altar swearing eternal hatred 
to Rome. 

The nascent period of Mr. Greene's life was passed at 
a time when the entire moral and political life of this 
nation was in a transition state. The great storm of 
the French Revolution, which had swept the civilized 
world for a quarter of a century, had subsided into 
a calm as remarkable as the convulsion that preceded 
it. Men were glad, yes, thrice glad, to beat their 
swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning- 
hooks. They were rejoiced to have their attention 
occupied by something more spiritual than a new rev- 
olution in Paris, a new coalition against France, an 
embargo, or a Hartford convention. Men were tired 
of hating and slaughtering each other, and, from sheer 
weariness or desire of change, if from no higher mo- 
tive, were willing to cultivate the virtues of benevo- 
lence and the arts of peace. Hence the great religious 
and philanthropic enterprises which mark the century 
sprung at once into lives of intense activity. The city 
of Boston, always first in the works of benevolence 
and philanthropy, was the centre of many of these 
great movements. The American Board of Commis- 
sioners for Foreign Missions, which had just been 
organized, settled there as the home of its organic life. 
Through its agency the Christian minds of the country 
were opening for the reception of the great truth of 
the universal brotherhood of mankind. Jeremiah 



12 ADDKESS. 

Evarts. the master-spirit of this and all kindred move- 
ments, might often have been seen at the law-office of 
Messrs. Hubbard & Greene. Mr. Hubbard, at a very 
early period, took a seat as member of the executive 
board, and his young partner was naturally drawn to 
the monthly concerts at Park Street Church, which 
then attracted so large a portion of the attention of 
the religious public in Boston. It was at this time 
that names which now have attained a world-wide 
celebrity were first awakening admiration by their un- 
selfish and Christian heroism. This was the time when 
Judson and Hall and Mills and Rice were leading on 
the sacramental host to a nobler crusade than any that 
was preached by Peter the Hermit. 

The condition of the religious public in Boston during 
these years was no less a matter of interest. The lib- 
eral portion of the congregational churches was begin- 
ning to assume a sectarian form, under the guidance 
of some of the most gifted spirits of the age. The 
orthodox, or evangelical party, as it was termed, was 
rousing from the slumbers and formalism of half a 
century to a higher Christian life and a more en- 
lightened course of Christian action. The collisions 
of theological opinion were very severe, and the results 
have doubtless to a great extent been salutary and 
permanent. It was during these years that Andrews 
Norton was preparing to reconstruct the evidences of 
the genuineness of the evangelical records, with a 
logical compactness and fulness of learning and a rhe- 
torical grace that have seldom been equalled and never 
surpassed ; that the Wares, father and son, were send- 
ing forth from the cloister and from the pulpit some 



ADDRESS. 13 

of the choicest productions that graced the Chris- 
tian literature of the first half of this century; that 
William Ellery Chaining was passing at the Federal 
Street Church that pastorate which was to become 
immortal in American ecclesiastical history ; that 
Charles Lowell was devoting to his ministry at the 
West Church the fruits of the ripest foreign culture 
and the virtues of a noble Christian heart. 

In the Brattle Street pulpit, still vocal with the elo- 
quence and hallowed by the piety and learning of Jo- 
seph Stevens Buckjuinster, the mantle of that lamented 
scholar and divine had fallen upon a young clergy- 
man, not yet turned of his majority, who had come to 
the sacred office in obedience to the summons of his 
predecessor ; who was but three years the academic 
senior of Mr. Greene, and had been his tutor in college ; 
whose scholarship surpassed all the traditions of the 
time, and the fervor of whose appeals drew tears from 
eyes unused to weep; who early left the service of the 
altar for a ministry at large, to bear unstained the 
holy fillets of the priesthood through the perilous paths 
of statesmanship and diplomacy, — to inspire his own 
and succeeding generations with the pure enthusiasm 
of patriotic virtue by embalming the great lessons of 
our early history in periods of strength and beauty 
that will be read and recited, like Homeric rhapsodies, 
while the language w T e speak retains its meaning in 
the ears of men, — to plead in our collegiate halls the 
cause of liberal studies, and in every city and hamlet 
the cause of the useful arts, — to stand enrobed with the 
highest honors in the hoary cloisters and storied halls 
of Oxford and Cambridge, yet gain far greater honors 



14 ADDRESS. 

as the patron of the American common school,* — to win 
easy triumphs over the trained diplomatists of Europe, 
and adapt the highest truths of science to the compre- 
hension of the common day-laborer, — to be the me- 
diator of a new covenant between all that is beautiful, 
useful, and true in the literatures, arts, and civilizations 
of the Old World and the manly virtues and free prin- 
ciples that were springing into life in the New, — to 
make our highways and by-ways of barbarous name as 
honored as the Appian and sacred ways of Roman re- 
nown, — and to teach the uncouth vocabularies of our 
Puritan and American dialects to move in the grand 
processions of his sentences with the grace of Apollos 
and the beauty of Hyperions ; whose later years were 
spent in a noble but vain endeavor to bind the hearts 
of his countrymen in indissoluble bonds of affection 
and gratitude to the nation's shrine at Mount Vernon, 
and, when all the ministries of peace had failed to heal 
the maladies of the times, and the mad demon of war 
was let loose in the land, to summon his countrymen 
to arms with an eloquence no less classic and far more 
successful than that which 

" Shook the arsenal and fulmined over Greece 
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne;" 

whose last public appeal, in behalf of returning prodi- 
gals, beneath the arches of Faneuil Hall, which had 
so often echoed back the plaudits of his rapt and 
crowded auditories, was in touching harmony with the 

* The acts establishing the Massachusetts Board of Education and the 
State Normal Schools bear the official signature of Edwaixl Everett, as the 
executive of the State. 



ADDRESS. 15 

last utterances at Calvary ; whose death the last week 
shook the very pillars of the State ; and around whose 
bier, as he was borne so tenderly to the peaceful shades 
of our modern Ceramicus, his partisan foes of every 
name thronged, to mingle their tears and swell the 
chorus of praise which admiring friends had always 
accorded to the exalted talents, the varied attainments, 
and the Christian virtues of Edward Everett. 

It was during these years also that Francis Wayland, 
at the First Baptist Church, by a single effort, placed 
himself in the front rank of American moralists and 
thinkers, and gave the first fitting expressions to the 
religious and patriotic spirit of the age, in his sermons 
on " The Moral Dignity of the Missionary Enterprise," 
and " The Duties of an American Citizen " ; that Ben- 
jamin B. Wisner was maintaining at the Old South 
Church, with singular ability and energy, the faith of 
the fathers, and breathing into the old ecclesiastical 
forms and formularies the breath of a new spiritual life. 
And last, but not least, it was during these years that 
the clarion voice of Lyman Beecher began to be heard 
in Boston ; and among the crowds that gathered to the 
Park Street Church * to hang upon the lips of this son 
of thunder might frequently have been seen the young 
lawyer whose life and character we are considering. 

Such were some of the salient features and prominent 
actors in the religious public at the period when Mr. 
Greene was entering upon his professional life. In civil 
life, and in the circle of his own profession, there were 
scenes and actors of equal interest. The Suffolk bar 

* The period referred to was previous to Dr. Beecher's settlement in 
Hanover Street, which did not occur until 1826. 



16 ADDRESS. 

at that time, as always, comprised a galaxy of learning 
and talent second to that of no other bar in the coun- 
try. There might still have been seen in court prac- 
titioners who had tried their first cases as loyal sub- 
jects of. King George III.; and there were still con- 
spicuous the stately bearing, the courteous dignity, 
and the professional self-respect, which, under the 
Colonial rule, had been derived from the practice and 
usages of lord high chancellors and chief justices of the 
Court of King's Bench. John Adams was still living, 
like Homer's Nestor to remind the risins; generation 
of the eventful struggles that ushered in the dawn of 
our national life ; while his distinguished son was aston- 
ishing the diplomatic circles of Europe by the extent 
of his erudition, or, as first minister of the cabinet at 
Washington, proving himself master of the highest 
duties of State. William Prescott, the father of the his- 
torian, was holding by general consent the first place 
in the Massachusetts bar. Harrison Gray Otis, just 
passing the prime of his manly beauty, still reminded 
the bar and the forum of that eloquence by which his 
distinguished relative had struck the key-note of the 
Revolution. Josiah Quincy, now in the high noon of his 
noble manhood, had just closed his stormy but brilliant 
congressional career, and was directing the ample 
resources of his mind to the principles of municipal 
law, and laying the foundations of the present pros- 
perity and civil order of his native city. At that time, 
too, occurred an event which produced some commo- 
tion in the Suffolk bar, which felt quite competent to 
transact the legal business of Boston without the aid 
of imported talent. In passing down Court Street in 



ADDRESS. 17 

the year 1816, there might have been seen the sign of 
a new claimant for legal patronage, " Daniel Webster, 
Attorney and Counsellor at Law." This new candi- 
date for public favor, in the language of one of the 
profession, had " come from the backwoods," and was 
hardly yet well versed in the habits and customs of 
good society. He managed, however, to get on tolera- 
bly well, and is now better known to the world than 
when he first stirred the jealousy of the elder, and 
roused the ambition of the younger members of the 
Boston bar. 

Nor should I forget to notice the new direction that 
Boston capital had already begun to take under the 
restrictions that the Embargo had imposed upon for- 
eign commerce, and the stimulus it had given to do- 
mestic manufactures. While William P. Greene was 
studying his classics and mathematics in the cloisters 
of Harvard College, Francis C. Lowell and Patrick T. 
Jackson, at the distance of only a few miles, in Wal- 
tham, were bending their thoughts to the re-invention 
of the machine that was to revolutionize New-England 
life, and emancipate our Yankee girls from the slavery 
of the hand-loom and spinning-wheel, and send them 
to the school-room and the seminary. While Mr. 
Greene was making his way through his Blackstone 
and Coke upon Littleton, Francis C. Lowell was far 
away in Washington, instilling into the mind of John 
C. Calhoun, not yet poisoned by the heresies of nulli- 
fication and secession, the principles of the protective 
system. What beginnings of woes and blessings here 
pass under our notice ! From this friendly interview 
between these sons of Massachusetts and South Caro- 



18 ADDRESS. 

lina, (the positive and negative poles of our whole 
social and political system,) there sprung, under the 
lead of Mr. Calhoun, a course of legislation which was 
made a pretext for nullification in 1832, and, with a 
change of issues, for secession in 1860. The present 
results to the South from the erratic conduct and dis- 
organizing principles of the great nullifier, we see in 
desolated fields, in prostrate commerce, and smoulder- 
ing ruins, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. In 
the North there has sprung into existence, under the 
same legislation, and in spite of all its fluctuations, an 
industrial life which has carried the star of our empire 
westward to the Pacific, and summoned to its aid every 
grade of talent and skill from the bogs of Ireland and 
the workshops of England and Germany. 

In commercial and financial circles there were names 
that have attained a national renown. The firm of 
A. & A. Lawrence, by whose talent, enterprise, and 
well-earned profits, treaties were to be made, cabinets 
moulded, cities founded, colleges and academies en- 
dowed, charities and asylums established for the relief 
of every ill that flesh or spirit is heir to, was formed 
the same year that Mr. Greene was graduated from 
college. The Appletons, Samuel, Nathan, and William, 
a noble triumvirate of benevolence, integrity, and mer- 
cantile wisdom; Thomas Handasyd Perkins, "whose 
heart was as much larger than his fortune as his fortune 
was larger than a beggar's " ; James Lloyd, respected 
alike for his ability and success in commercial life, and 
for his address and talent as a member of the United 
States Senate ; and, in the purely financial department 
of commerce, the honored father of our lamented 



ADDRESS. 19 

friend, Gardiner Greene, whose skill and integrity were 
recognized in his appointment to the presidency of the 
Boston branch of the United States Bank ; — these are 
a few of the more prominent names representing the 
men who in the Boston of forty years ago laid the 
foundations of what we see in the Boston of to-day ; 
who raised commerce far above the selfish pursuit of 
private gain, and taught their own and succeeding 
generations that it is a great calling of humanity, 
having high duties and generous aims, — one of the 
noblest developments of our modern civilization. 

The political world at this period was in a state of 
unusual ferment. The contest between the Federalists 
and Democrats was far more bitter, though less bloody, 
than it has been even in our own times. The streets 
of Boston were the scenes of personal and even of 
murderous conflict. The partisan warfare carried on 
in their respective journals by Benjamin Russell and 
Benjamin Austin will always form a marked chapter 
in the history of American journalism. The bitterness 
of these political contests stimulated intellectual action, 
and by its very excesses awakened a desire for higher 
and calmer discussions of the great questions of state 
and literature than mere partisan journals could per- 
mit. This desire found expression in the establish- 
ment of the "North American Review." 

The close of the war with Great Britain, and the 
banishment of Napoleon, were followed by an " era of 
good feelings" as remarkable as had been the intensity 
of the previous partisan strife. The force of passion 
"could no farther go." During the period of calm 



20 ADDRESS. 

which followed, some of the older political combatants 
seemed inclined to retire from the field, and, like wearied 
Titans, to give up the strife from mere exhaustion. 
Parties could no longer be marshalled under the old 
issues. The progress of events had removed the old 
questions from the field of debate. The times required 
a new division of party lines, and were favorable for 
the presentation of new political aspirants. The claims 
of Mr. Greene were not overlooked. It was felt that 
he could present an array of influence, social, pecuniary, 
and political, which would secure for him a rapid ad- 
vancement and undoubted success. He was accord- 
ingly invited to present himself as a candidate for the 
first grades of political preferment on our modern 
Athenian hema in Faneuil Hall. The offer was care- 
fully considered and deliberately declined. He deemed 
the moral sacrifices too great. The peril to his integ- 
rity far outweighed the promise to his fame. To this 
decision he adhered through life, with the exception, 
that, for a single year, he filled very acceptably the 
office of Mayor of this city. 

Such were some of the influences under which Mr. 
Greene pursued the studies preparatory to his profes- 
sion, and commenced its practice. At no period of its 
history, probably, has Boston possessed, in proportion 
to its population, a greater amount of really useful 
and active talent, or exhibited in professional, mercan- 
tile, and social life, fairer examples of high honor and 
true manhood, than in the second decade of the present 
century. And it will be somewhat surprising to one 
who has given no thought to the subject to observe 



ADDRESS. 21 

how large a portion of the influences which now shape 
New-England society date their origin, or received 
their permanent impress from this period. These 
events, and others which have now become some of the 
landmarks of history, — these actors, whose lives gave 
so much of their importance to these events, — were in 
themselves a school of influence and a source of power 
which rij>ened into large and generous growth quali- 
ties that had only germinated under the formal dis- 
cipline of the academic and professional curricula. Es- 
pecially was this the case with a nature so susceptible 
and capacious as Mr. Greene's. The bare perception 
of great qualities of character awakened in him a sense 
of obligation not only to imitate, but to appropriate 
them, not merely to ape, but to own them. Accordingly, 
the manly and heroic virtues sprung up in his early 
manhood, not as exotics, but as the native products 
of the soul ; and he rose superior to all the allurements 
of ease and the seductions of pleasure, resolved to bear 
an honorable part in the battle of life, and to win its 
laurels, or at least to deserve them. 

On the 14th of July, 1819, Mr. Greene was united 
in marriage to Augusta Elizabeth, daughter of Louis 
Yassail Borland, a lady of rare accomplishments and 
most winning manners, a lady whose virtues were at 
once the solace and the admiration of her husband. 

The circumstances under which Mr. Greene passed 
the brief term of his professional life were not favora- 
ble for his acquiring the reputation as a lawyer to 
which his ability entitled him. As junior member of 
the firm, the work of the office, rather than the plead- 
ings and arguments in court, devolved upon him. 



22 ADDRESS. 

There are not wanting incidents, 1 however, to show 
that he was destined to occupy a commanding posi- 
tion at the American bar had circumstances permitted 
him to continue in his profession. He possessed in an 
eminent degree all those mental qualities which lie at 

1 The following incidents may serve to illustrate the moral temper with 
which Mr. Greene commenced the practice of his profession. 

A man making high professions of sanctity of character, and of ample 
means, entered his office on one occasion, and placed in his hands a claim 
against a laboring man which he wished prosecuted to the full extent of 
the law, (the laws enforcing imprisonment for debt were, at that time, in 
full force). Mr. Greene took the claim, and at once commenced the prepa- 
ration of the necessary papers, and while thus engaged, entered into conver- 
sation with his client respecting the moral aspects of the case. " Is not this 
man honest whom you are about to commit to prison ? " said the young law- 
yer. " He is so far as I know," replied the client. " Is he not industrious ? '» 
" I know nothing to the contrary." " Has he not a family dependent upon 
him ? " "I believe he has." " Why, then, do you propose to distress him ? " 
" Because I want my money," was the reply. The conversation proceeded 
in this strain until the papers were completed, when Mr. Greene, gathering 
them in his hand, and looking his client earnestly and imploringly in the 
face, made a final appeal. " I beg you, Sir, not to distress this poor man 
in this manner." " I don't care ; I want my money," was the unfeeling 
reply. Mr. Greene looked at him in silence for a moment, while his indig- 
nation rose to the point of action ; then, taking from his pocket the amount 
of money necessary to pay the debt, he placed it, in connection with the 
papers, in the hands of his client, and " kicked him down-stairs," with very 
explicit directions never to enter his office again. 

A case of some importance had been intrusted to him, and in the prepar- 
ation for the trial, Mr. Greene had urged the importance of the strictest 
veracity in all statements respecting the points at issue. But in the course 
of the trial it became apparent from the testimony of the opposing party 
that his client had knowingly deceived him. As soon as he ascertained 
this, he rose in the bar, and, fixing a withering look upon his client, said to 
him, " You have lied to me, Sir"; then turning to the court, he said, "May 
it please your Honor, I have not the case before you that has been repre- 
sented to me, and I shall prosecute it no further." 

These anecdotes may not accord with the precepts of Lord Chesterfield ; 
but if they are deficient in the suaviter in modo, they certainly do not lack 
the fortiter in re. 



ADDRESS. . 23 

the foundation of great success. A remarkably reten- 
tive memory, a quickness of perception, a breadth of 
comprehension, and a keenness of penetration seldom 
equalled, were united with a degree of courage and 
force of will which quailed at no dangers, and yielded 
to no obstacles. Although he never appeared in 
Norwich as a lawyer, I have the best authority for 
saying that his opinions upon difficult points of law 
were always held in the highest respect; and in the 
numerous legal questions arising out of a most exten- 
sive and complicated business life, in which he had 
occasion to call to his aid the best legal talent, his 
own judgment was seldom improved by that of his 
counsel, or overruled by the decisions of the bench. 
His career as a lawyer, however, was destined to be of 
short duration. His father had so far sympathized with 
the great movement for the establishment of domestic 
manufactures as to invest considerable sums in these 
enterprises, and among others the Thames Company 
at Norwich Falls went into operation in 1823, upon 
the basis of capital which was furnished by him and 
other Boston capitalists. The first operations of the 
company were conducted by the late William C. Gil- 
man, so long and so favorably known in this commu- 
nity. Soon after the company commenced operations, 
Mr. Gardiner Greene gave to his son the whole amount 
which he had invested in this city, with the added 
condition that he should remove hither and take 
the property under his personal charge. There was 
also another reason which had a controlling influence 
in inducing him to remove from Boston to Norwich. 
His health, which was never reallv robust, had ex- 



24 ADDRESS. 

hibited alarming symptoms of decline. An attack of 
hemorrhage had settled the fact that a longer con- 
tinuance in the law-office would in all probability soon 
prove fatal. The wish of the father alone was law for 
the son. He accordingly bade adieu to the home of 
his youth and to the brilliant prospects that were 
opening before him in his profession, for the less in- 
viting scenes of a cotton-mill. He left the court-room 
which had resounded with the eloquence of John 
Adams and James Otis, and which could promise 
no honors to which he might not worthily aspire, 
for the music of the power-loom and the spinning- 
jenny. The change involved undoubtedly a consid- 
erable sacrifice of feeling, and was hardly in accord- 
ance with the dictates of his own deliberate judgment. 
He left the profession in which he was rapidly becom- 
ing proficient, for a business of which he had the first 
principles and all the details to learn. The greatness 
of the change he did not himself fully realize until the 
experience of years had taught him that the manu- 
facture of cotton, like the practice of law, was a com- 
plicated and even a profound science, and that the 
ruin of one fortune was necessary to furnish the ex- 
perience requisite for the accumulation of another. 

It was in the summer of 1824 that Mr. Greene re- 
moved to this city, and entered upon the new course 
of life to which circumstances rather than choice had 
called him. It is even doubtful whether, at the time 
of his removal, his purpose was fixed to remain here. 
Whatever may have been his intention, there were ele- 
ments in his character which forbade him to abandon 
an enterprise or leave a community in which he had 



ADDRESS. 25 

once become interested. We find, accordingly, that he 
had scarcely become settled in this city before he was 
a leader in every enterprise connected with its welfare. 
Within a year after his arrival, he was at the head of 
the movement which resulted in the organization of 
the Thames Bank, of which he was made the first 
President, and over the fortunes of which he continued 
to preside for the following sixteen years. In 1826 
and 1827, he, in connection with Mr. Gilman and 
several others, was directing his attention to the 
importance of improving the educational advantages 
in this community. The extensive but unimproved 
water-power upon the Shetucket River had already 
attracted attention, but no systematic efforts had been 
made for bringing it under the control of human indus- 
try. Mr. Greene was the first and largest contributor 
to the fund for making the survey of the river and de- 
termining all the questions preliminary to rendering it 
available for industrious purposes. Nor do many years 
elapse before we find the same active and determined 
spirit thoroughly awake to the importance of increased 
accommodations for travel and transportation between 
this city and the great centres of commerce in Boston 
and New York. 

But these events must be considered more in detail ; 
and, in doing so, it will be convenient to divide his life 
in Norwich into two periods, — the first extending 
from the time of his settlement here in 1824 to the 
great financial crisis in 1837 ; and the second extend- 
ing from the last-named period until his death. The 
first of these periods was one of intense and ceaseless 
activity; and, as I have already intimated, his labors ex- 



26 ADDRESS. 

tended to every variety of human interest and to 
every department of human action. The second was 
a period of less external activity, but of greater pros- 
perity. During this period he was permitted to realize 
some of the advantages naturally arising from his pre- 
vious years of toil, self-sacrifice, and calamity. 

In 1825, the traveller through Norwich would have 
found on the site of the present village of Greenevelle 1 
— with its population of three thousand souls, and its 
manufacturing capital of upwards of a million of dol- 
lars, with its churches and schools — but a single farm- 
house, while the stream that waters it was of little 
value to the inhabitants, save that in spring-time it 
afforded them an abundant supply of shad. In his first 
plan for bridling the Shetucket and compelling it to 
labor in the service of man, Mr. Greene had in view 
the manufacture of iron, and relied upon the active co- 
operation of a man who had large means at his disposal, 
as well as long experience in this department of me- 
chanical industry. Relying upon his good faith, he had 
nearly completed his contracts for the necessary extent 
of land bordering upon the river, when his coadjutor 
was induced to abandon the Norwich scheme for what 
appeared a more lucrative field of action in Chelms- 
ford, Mass. Thus forsaken by the gentleman, or I 
should rather say by the man, whose aid seemed of 
vital importance to success, he nevertheless persisted 
in his enterprise, though in a modified form. Aban- 
doning the particular kind of manufacture which he 
had first proposed, he now directed his attention sim- 
ply to the purpose of making the great water-power 

1 See Appendix, Note B. 



ADDRESS. 27 

serviceable for any form of industrial service that 
might be desired. Hence originated the Norwich 
Water-power Company, which still exists under its 
original charter. 

This company commenced operations on the She- 
tucket in the spring of 1829, and the work was com- 
pleted in the following year. In the early part of 
1832, the Thames Company laid the foundations of the 
first cotton-mill in that village, and on its completion 
hired a large portion of the water-power which had 
been made available. The operations of the Thames 
Company had now become quite extended, comprising 
the cotton and iron manufactures at the Falls, the 
cotton-mill at Bozrahville, and what was then called 
the Quinebaug Mill on the Shetucket. The original 
capital was three hundred thousand dollars, and this 
was increased in 1825 to five hundred thousand dollars, 
and at a subsequent period it was still further aug- 
mented. The business of the company, however, was 
never eminently profitable, and in 1837 it shared the 
fate of a large proportion of similar establishments in 
the country. Its interests became somewhat involved 
in those of another manufacturing company, the Nor- 
wich and New York Manufacturing Company; and 
this company, on the failure of the Thames, became 
the purchaser of the greater portion of its property. 
The career of the Norwich and New York Company 
was of short duration ; and in October, 1843, its prop- 
erty passed into the hands of the present Falls Com- 
pany, 1 which was organized upon the joint- stock prin- 

1 See Appendix, Note C. 



28 ADDRESS. 

ciple, and continues to prosper under that organization 
until the present time. 

It might seem that the water-power and manufactur- 
ing companies already mentioned, with all the compli- 
cations and perplexities incident to their first organiza- 
tion, would have been sufficient to exhaust the energies 
of a single mind, however active, for a period of ten 
years. But it was otherwise. The people of Norwich, 
as early as 1830, began to agitate the subject of con- 
structing a railroad between this city and Worcester, 
and thus establishing a readier communication with the 
commercial capital of the New England States. It was 
natural than an enterprise of this nature, the object of 
which was to bring his native city into closer commu- 
nication with the city of his adoption, should warmly 
enlist his sympathies and thoroughly arouse his ener- 
gies. It will be remembered, that, through Mr. Greene, 
Boston capital had already begun to flow pretty freely 
into Norwich for investment. This circumstance con- 
tributed not a little to the success of the undertaking. 
But the intrinsic magnitude of the work was by no 
means the only obstacle to be overcome. 1 It required 
the harmonious and favorable action of the legislatures 
of two different States. It encountered serious opposi- 
tion from the rival roads which had been projected on 
other routes. The peculiar qualities of Mr. Greene's 
character, his business connections and personal ac- 
quaintances in Boston, no less than his large influence 
here, made him one of the most efficient agents in 
planning and executing this Herculean task. The 
younger portion of the population of Norwich, who 

1 See Appendix, Note D. 



ADDRESS. 29 

have not heard, from the actors in this great work or 
their contemporaries, the greatness of the difficulties 
attending it, can form but an imperfect idea of their 
magnitude. It involved the ruin of many a fair fortune 
in this city, and for a time seemed to threaten the 
financial destruction of the place. It will be remem- 
bered, also, that in the midst of the work the great 
revulsion of 1837 added greatly to the already gi- 
gantic obstacles to be overcome. Through all these 
years of toil and disaster, Mr. Greene bore more than 
his individual share of the burdens which the work 
necessarily laid upon all its friends. At the organiza- 
tion of the company he was one of the largest sub- 
scribers to its stock, was one of the original board of 
directors, was chosen to its presidency, which he de- 
clined to accept, and it was by his personal influence 
at one of the most critical junctures of the road, that 
the credit of the State of Massachusets was finally 
obtained, and the success of the project placed beyond 
a doubt. 

The commencement of operations upon the road in 
the spring of 1836 was signalized by a grand civil and 
military display, marking as it did an era in the com- 
mercial and industrial history of the city. On that 
occasion, a stranger might have seen among the wor- 
thies of the day a man of slight frame and pallid 
countenance, an invalid, to all appearance, who had just 
received his discharge from his sick chamber, and had 
come out to seek in the excitement and joyousness of 
the occasion a restoration of his wasted strength. An 
intelligent resident would have informed him that in 
that quiet and unassuming person was found the real 



30 ADDRESS. 

genius and ruling spirit of the enterprise ; that it was 
to his convincing logic and resolute will that legislative 
bodies and council boards were to yield a cordial assent ; 
that at his command the coffers of the Old Bay State 
— never closed when any great or good cause is in 
need of aid — would be cheerfully opened ; that by 
his unbending integrity and determined courage fraud 
would be exposed and rebuked, and the whole work at 
last triumphantly completed. 

I have repeatedly referred to the financial crisis in 
1837 as an important era in Mr. Greene's life. It was 
at this time that he saw the princely fortune which he 
had inherited from his father entirely swept away. 
He was not. however, reduced to absolute bankruptcy. 
"I did suppose," he once remarked, " in 1837, that I 
was worth something, but it subsequently appeared 
that I was worth nothing ; that on which I had relied 
as possessing some value proved to be utterly worth- 
less." But the ruin of his fortune had brought no 
stain upon his character. That fortune had not been 
wasted in the pursuit of pleasure ; it had not been 
made the sport of any sordid or selfish ambition. It 
had disappeared in the varying fortunes of business, 
and had been honestly invested in enterprises that 
promised not only a profit to the owner, but lasting 
benefits to this and other communities. But if he had 
not grown rich, he certainly had become wise. What 
he had lost in material property he had more than 
gained in that wealth of character which no vicissi- 
tudes could destroy. 

In readjusting his shattered fortunes, it became 
necessary to seek for a time some pecuniary aid. His 



ADDRESS. 31 

first applications were not successful. In this emer- 
gency his brother, Benjamin D. Greene, 1 from whom he 
had neither asked nor intended to ask any aid, met 
him, while he was on a visit to Boston, and quietly 
placed in his hand a small slip of paper. On examina- 
tion he found it to be a check for twenty thousand dol- 
lars. Surprised by this unexpected act of fraternal confi- 
dence and affection, he handed it back with the familiar 
remark, " I shall not take this, Ben." " I shall not be 
pleased if you do not, Will, after mortgaging my house 
to get it for you." He did accept the offered favor, 
and remarked, a few years since, in relating the cir- 
cumstance, " It is some satisfaction to me to know that 
my brother is worth fifty thousand dollars more to-day 
than he would have been had he not loaned me that 
money." And here I cannot but remark that the fore- 
going incident was only a representative act of 
the relations that existed between these brothers. 
Throughout their entire lives they cherished the most 
confiding fraternal affection, without one unkind act or 
word, while the services and the fortunes of each were 
always at the disposal of the other, as the varying for- 
tunes of life might demand. Surely we may say, 
" Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren 
to dwell together in unity!" And it is but proper to 
add, as the fortune of the elder brother was largely 
invested in this city, in the various enterprises directed 
by the younger, that he shared largely, perhaps equally 
in those mental and moral qualities which so long 
and so extensively blessed this community. He re- 
ceived his elementary education in the Edinburgh 

1 See Appendix, Note E. 



32 ADDRESS. 

High School, was graduated at Harvard College, at- 
tained high distinction as a man of science, possessing, 
at the time of his death, the best private herbarium in 
the country. This great botanical collection, together 
with an additional legacy of ten thousand dollars, 
and his valuable library, was given to the "Boston 
Society of Natural History," in which he always took a 
deep interest and of which he was the first president. 

The whole attention of Mr. Greene, during the first 
period of his Norwich life, was not absorbed in devel- 
oping the natural resources and advancing the mate- 
rial welfare of the city. I have already noticed his 
early attempts to improve the educational advantages 
in this community. He was none the less mindful of 
its religious interests. At an early period in the his- 
tory of the Thames Company, provision was made for 
the spiritual wants of the operatives by the erection 
of a small chapel, which for years he made his regular 
place of worship. At this time he was not only the 
temporal but the spiritual adviser of those who were 
engaged in the mills under his direction. The majority 
of his operatives were protestants, and the great bar- 
rier which now divides the religious sympathies of 
employers and employees did not at that time exist. 
The chapel of which I have spoken soon became too 
small to meet the demand that was made upon it, and 
increased accommodations were obtained by the erec- 
tion of the tasteful edifice now occupied by the Meth- 
odists, on Sachem Street. The principal part of the 
expense of erecting this church was eventually paid 
by Mr. Greene out of his own pocket. 

The history of this portion of Mr. Greene's life 



ADDRESS. 33 

merits a much more extended and minute narrative 
than I have given it. It is a matter of great regret 
that he has left us no record of these events, so im- 
portant to the historian of this city, beyond plain busi- 
ness transactions and official records, important portions 
of which have already been consumed by fire. He 
was quite indifferent even to the honest fame to which 
his enterprise and achievements entitled him ; and he 
has left no diary or other personal writings from which 
we can gather the internal history of the man. Suc- 
cess in laudable endeavors was to him a sufficient 
reward, and failure he encountered not with mere 
stoical indifference, but with Christian heroism. 

The second portion of Mr. Greene's life we may date 
from the organization of the Shetucket Company in 1838. 
This company was formed in part from the ruins of 
the Thames Company, by the purchase of the Quine- 
baug Mill at Greeneville, by William P. and Benjamin 
D. Greene and Samuel Mowry. The Falls Company 
was organized in October, 1843, and these two compa- 
nies, in the improved circumstances of the country and 
in the increased wisdom of those who directed their 
affairs, at once entered upon a career of prosperity. 
The losses of previous years were in a great measure 
repaired, and, with one exception, this period of pros- 
perity continued until the close of Mr. Greene's life. 
In May, 1842, he had the misfortune to see the mill of 
the Shetucket Company burned to the ground. It was 
a severe blow both to his fortune and his spirit ; but 
while the smoke was yet rising from the ruins of the 
first mill, his purpose was formed and steps were taken 
for the erection of a second. This was speedily com- 



34 ADDRESS. 

pleted, and, with some additions, is the large cotton- 
mill now standing in Greeneville. In 1845 and 1846 
his activity was very much restricted by protracted 
sickness. For nearly two years he was scarcely able 
to leave his house ; still his mind toiled on. During 
this confinement he went through an elaborate course 
of experiments, involving all the principles of hydro- 
statics and hydraulics, and their application to water- 
wheels and the various forms of engineering involved 
in their structure and management. 

We may pass over the succeeding years of Mr. 
Greene's history as presenting nothing out of his usual 
routine of business life and active usefulness, until we 
reach a period in which we, as friends of the Free 
Academy, are especially interested. The people of 
Norwich had been slow to act in sympathy with the 
great movement which was giving to the State and to 
the country an improved class of public schools. They 
came late to the work, and compensated the tardiness 
of their action by their energy and efficiency when 
fairly enlisted in the movement. In 1853 a privately 
printed circular was addressed to the leading business 
men of this city, by the Rev. John P. Gulliver, solicit- 
ing their joint action and pecuniary contributions for 
the establishment of a literary institution of high order, 
at an estimated expense of seventy-five thousand dol- 
lars. The plan contemplated ten equal subscriptions 
of the amount of seven thousand five hundred dollars. 
Mr. Greene was the third individual to whom this cir- 
cular was submitted. He promptly replied that he 
would give one tenth of seventy-five thousand dollars, 
or of any other sum that might be thought necessary 



ADDRESS. 35 

for the accomplishment of the object. After securing 
the amount first proposed, and before the plans for the 
building were completed, an additional sum of ten 
thousand dollars was found necessary, and of this ad- 
ditional sum he contributed fifteen hundred dollars. 
With this subscription the Norwich Free Academy was 
erected in 1855-6, and dedicated on the 21st of Octo- 
ber, 1856. In February, 1857, he contributed the ad- 
ditional sum of one thousand dollars, (as part of a new 
subscription of five thousand dollars,) to aid in remov- 
ing some obligations that had been incurred in the 
erection and furnishing of the building. On the death 
of Mr. Russell Hubbard, in June, 1857, who had been 
elected first President of the Corporation and Board of 
Trustees, Mr. Greene was chosen to succeed him ; and 
he was continued in that office by successive elections 
until his death. During these seven years he not only 
held the office, but filled it. From the commencement 
of the enterprise he had done much towards mould- 
ing its character, and some of its most important 
features are due to his influence. Mr. Hubbard, his 
predecessor in office, used often to speak of him as 
" his right-hand man." It was his official and individual 
aim not only to render the academy a first-class school 
in every department usually included in a high-school 
course of instruction, but to place its advantages on 
equal terms for all the inhabitants of Norwich. If he 
discriminated at all, that discrimination was shown in 
favor of the less affluent portion of the community. 
His labors and his benefactions, in connection with this 
institution, were emphatically works of love. When- 
ever any business connected with the Free Academy 



36 ADDRESS. 

required his attention, he was always ready. In my 
official intercourse of seven years with him, I was 
never denied a hearing in consequence of some other 
engagement, nor on account of the infirm state of his 
health, which often confined him to his chamber ; and, 
more than this, I always found him cheerful. If there 
had been losses incurred, if mistakes had been made, 
if disasters had befallen us, instead of manifesting any 
impatience, he would receive the announcement with a 
cheerful smile, and oftentimes with an exhibition of his 
inimitable pleasantry. I never asked him for a far- 
thing for the Academy, and yet he expended through 
me more than fifteen hundred dollars* in various ways, 
which he never reported to the treasurer. When 
questions of importance arose, it was wonderful to wit- 
ness his capacity for labor and his willingness to per- 
form it 5 and that, too, when others felt that he was 
entitled to exemption. In all investigations affecting 
character he was remarkable alike for his courage and 
his painstaking efforts to get at the exact truth. How 
little does this community know of the toils through 
which he passed in connection with some cases of 
difficulty that came before him ; and it was all done 
without a murmur and without a censure! He had a 
great partiality for hearing both sides of a question, 
and in fact did not consider himself qualified to decide 
a case justly until both sides of it had been carefully 
examined. He was one of the best school legislators I 
ever knew ; and this was the more surprising from the 
fact that his entire life had been spent in the consid- 
eration of great interests and in business pursuits 

* See Appendix, Note F. 



ADDRESS. 37 

which had no connection with the internal policy of 
the school-room. The playfulness of his nature was 
often exhibited in connection with his acts of gen- 
erosity ; and it seems to me but proper to relate some 
of these, as they may give to those who have never 
known him a more distinct impression of his character. 
At the dedication of the Free Academy a valuable 
pianoforte had been borrowed to furnish the necessary 
accompaniment in the musical entertainment, with the 
hope that means might in some way be obtained to 
purchase it for the institution. But months passed 
away and the piano remained in the school-room un- 
paid for, and with no person to acknowledge respon- 
sibility for its value, nor even for its rent. The owner 
very naturally desired that some disposition should be 
made of it. Returning home on the evening of the 
29th of April, 1857, 1 found the following note : — 

Mr. Smith : 

Dear Sir, — I have this day received payment in full for the piano- 
forte, stool, and spread, now in the Academy, from the hand of Mr. 
Levi Muggins. 

Yours truly, Geo. H. Martin. 

This note produced quite a sensation in our aca- 
demic circle. The worthy president thought that the 
piano had been sold to some stranger. The family of 
" Muggins " was not well known in Norwich ; indeed, it 
was not known at all. Others thought the whole mat- 
ter a joke. Mr. Martin was evidently in league with 
Mr. Muggins, as he refused to throw any light on the 
subject beyond what was contained in his note. The 
treasurer of the Academy met Mr. Greene at the bank, 
and accused him of the whole transaction ; and after 



38 ADDRESS. 

some days of good-natured banter and not unpleasant 
mystery, the community settled into the conviction 
that Mr. Levi Muggins was the nom de plume of a well- 
known gentleman on Washington Street, whose fond- 
ness for sport and innocent practical jokes was often 
exhibited in his deeds of charity and benevolence. 

In the autumn of the same year, in the darkest 
period of that terrible financial revulsion, knowing 
that there were some funds at the disposal of the trus- 
tees which had been raised for general purposes, I 
called on Mr. Greene with reference to purchasing a 
pair of globes for the use of the school. He inquired 
of me what size of globes I wanted. I told him I had 
always thought of thirty-six-inch globes, but that those 
were no times for such educational luxuries ; that eigh- 
teen-inch globes would answer very well, if indeed it 
were advisable to purchase globes of any size. " Get 
the best terms you can for thirty-six-inch globes," he 
replied, "and bring them to me. Do you want any- 
thing more ? " " No," I replied. " Then go," he said, 
pleasantly ; " I must be excused, for I am going to Bos- 
ton to-nis-ht." We shall soon learn what was his busi- 
ness in Boston. When I brought him the price of the 
globes, he gave me his check for the amount, (one hun- 
dred and fifty dollars,) remarking, " Take that for Christ- 
mas ; I always mean to remember the Free Academy 
at that time." I afterwards learned, that, on that very 
day, cheerful and playful as he seemed, there was a 
weight upon him that would have borne a royal mer- 
chant down. At that very time, in addition to the 
great responsibilities connected with the companies 
under his charge, he was pledging half his fortune to 



ADDRESS. 39 

place the solvency of his friends beyond a doubt. And 
yet in that period of distress, when the financial foun- 
dations of the world seemed out of place, when fortunes 
of colossal magnitude were dissipated like the mists 
of the dawn, and men who woke in the morning with 
the wealth of Croesus, retired at night only to lodgings 
provided by charity, he trod the path of his daily duties 
with as manly a courage and as cheerful a serenity as 
the mariner walks his quarter-deck while his sails are 
filled by the most prosperous breezes. I have thought 
that these particulars, trifling though they may seem, 
relating to two of the most prominent and useful 
objects in our school-room, would not, if remembered, 
mar in the least the music that accompanies our morn- 
ing devotions, or retard the progress of grateful pupils 
as they thread their way through all the problems of 
terrestrial latitude and longitude, or trace the bounda- 
ries of Lyra and Andromeda, of Orion and Pleiades, 
and mount to all the mysteries and harmonies of the 
galaxies and nebulae of the highest heavens. 

There had been a tacit understanding between Mr. 
Russell Hubbard and Mr. Greene, and I believe also 
some other donors to the funds of the Free Academy, 
that when the institution was fairly started there should 
be a further addition to its funds. The death of Mr. 
Hubbard prevented his taking any part in this work, 
to which he was looking forward with so much pleas- 
ure. The object, however, was not lost sight of by 
Mr. Greene. He partially accomplished this purpose 
in the second year of his administration, when he 
united with several others in raising seven thousand 
five hundred dollars for the Academy ; and on the 



40 ADDRESS. 

first of January, 1863, he placed in the hands of Mr. 
Learned, the treasurer, the sum of ten thousand dollars, 
in the form of seven-thirty bonds, with the understand- 
ing that the amount should be increased to fifteen 
thousand dollars by other friends of the institution. 
The total amount of his contributions to the Free 
Academy was little short of thirty thousand dollars. 
It is proper to notice in this connection, that, on the 
7th of September, 1859, Mrs. Augusta E. Greene* saw 
fit to celebrate her husband's birthday, which also 
coincided with the birthday of the city, on its bicen- 
tennial return, and gave a fitting charm to the festivities 
of our jubilee by putting iuto the hands of the treas- 
urer of the Free Academy a deed of the estate now 
occupied by the Principal, which she had purchased 
at an expense of seven thousand dollars. And if to 
this be added the donation of another member of the 
family, our honored Mayor, the total sum of the con- 
tributions from this family falls but little short of 
forty thousand dollars, — a full third of the entire prop- 
erty of the institution. The princely donations of Mr. 
Greene, as you well know, were not the only, perhaps 
not the most important, services rendered by him to 
the Academy. His labors as a trustee and as the pre- 
siding officer will long be remembered by those who 
were associated with him on the board, as well as by 
the community at large. The state of his health did 
not permit him to visit the school, to inspect in person 
its operations and form that acquaintance with the 
teachers and scholars that he desired. He excused 
himself, however, from these duties only on the ground 

* See Appendix, Note G. 



ADDRESS. 41 

of necessity. It was to him a matter of self-denial, 
and he submitted to the privation as to an affliction. 
His last appearance at any of the exercises of the 
school was on the occasion of the annual exhibition 
in 1860. At the close he made some remarks to the 
pupils in reply to a token of affection which was 
handed him by the graduating class. It is a matter 
of regret that an exact report of these remarks has 
not been preserved. He could not have spoken more 
appropriately had he known that it was to be his 
last utterance to the school. " Scholars at your age," 
he said, a are often inclined to insist upon their rights, 
and that too, perhaps, when they have not been vio- 
lated. Let me advise you to be more solicitous to 
learn your duties than your rights. Seek first to 
know what you ought to do, and you may expect, as 
a matter of course, that your rights will be respected. 
If we take proper care of our duties, our rights will 
take care of themselves." 

I have already observed that the health of Mr. Greene 
gave early indications of infirmity. From boyhood he 
had been the victim of a pulmonary complaint, which 
twenty years ago threatened an immediate termination 
of his life. In addition to this he suffered seriously from 
two very severe falls, which, according to all known 
physical laws, should have proved fatal. It was under 
these great physical disadvantages that the immense 
labors of his life were performed. More than fifteen years 
before his death, a council of physicians pronounced 
his recovery hopeless, and admitted their inability to 
render him any further aid. This announcement, which 
would in the case of most men only have hastened 



42 ADDRESS. 

dissolution, merely stirred his energies to encounter 
his infirmities with his own resolute and determined 
spirit. He became, for a time, almost exclusively his 
own physician. He rose superior to all his maladies, 
and by wisely husbanding his strength, and carefully 
studying his constitution, he was able still to put forth 
the energies of his great mind in the successful man- 
agement of his extensive business. This is by no 
means the least remarkable feature of his character, 
that, while suffering from infirmities that, with the great 
majority of men, would have made them only burdens 
upon the patience of their friends, he still continued to 
dispense his wise and powerful influence as a leading 
mind in the community. Still, for the last twenty 
years of his life, he was, as it were, under bonds for 
good behavior ; was obliged to regulate his diet, to 
guard against exposure, and to exercise constantly a 
degree of circumspection as far beyond the power as 
it is above the disposition of ordinary men. It was by 
this despotic control to which in the exercise of his 
moral and intellectual powers he subjected his physical 
nature, that he was enabled to prolong his life to the 
honored verge of threescore years and ten. He was 
able, by reason of his superior courage, at all times to 
look his symptoms calmly in the face. There were 
times long before his death when he thought his end 
was near, but this conviction produced no discom- 
posure. He walked thoughtfully, but serenely, 

" the silent, solemn shore 
Of that vast ocean he must sail so soon," 

as he thought, and discussed every question pertaining 



ADDRESS. 43 

to his change with the same calmness that he would 
have arranged the preparations for a week's journey. 

Pardon me if I dwell for a moment upon the last 
interview which I had with him. It was a few weeks 
before his death, and on the occasion of a meeting of 
the board of trustees, called at his especial request. It 
was quite evident that his strength was not equal to 
the occasion. His utterance never appeared so diffi- 
cult, and he even apologized by saying, "Don't be dis- 
composed, Gentlemen ; I do not suffer as much as I 
seem to." I cut short the work of the meeting as 
much as possible, as I saw that his strength was over- 
tasked, and omitted several items of business that re- 
quired attention. As soon as the adjournment was 
announced, I hastened to take him by the hand and 
bid him good-night. He grasped my hand, and, weak 
as he was, drew me to a chair by his side, and at once 
entered upon a clear and forcible argument upon the 
great questions which we had so often discussed. So 
earnest was he, that a moment's interruption by a 
member of the family seemed, to annoy him. In his 
ardor to give expression to his thought, he seemed 
entirely forgetful of his bodily weakness. He was 
pushing his inquiries into those great subjects which 
we are assured the angels desire to look into, little 
thinking that the time was so near when 

" every bound should disappear, 
And infinite perfection close the scene." 

From the nature of his complaints he had long ex- 
pected that his last struggle would be one of great 
severity, and he awaited the summons with the most 



44 ADDRESS. 

perfect calmness. For several months there were indi- 
cations of failing strength, yet there was no abatement 
of heart or hope. The regular routine of business was 
attended to with few, if any, exceptions. On the even- 
ino 1 of the 17th of June he attended to his corre- 
spondence as usual, though not without some incon- 
venience. After a restless night he woke at an early 
hour and asked for some refreshment. This not being 
in instant readiness, he fell into a quiet sleep, and to 
all appearance his wasted energies were recovering 
their accustomed strength. There was nothing to ex- 
cite alarm even in the constant scrutiny and zealous 
watchfulness of filial love ; and when his daughter ap- 
proached his bedside, fearing that his sleep might be 
too protracted for his strength, she found that the 
great crisis was over, and that he had passed without a 
struggle and without a groan from the repose of sleep 
to the repose of death. 

" So fades a summer cloud away, 

So sinks the gale when storms are o'er ; 
So gently shuts the eye of day, 
So dies a wave along the shore." 

The character of Mr. Greene was one of remarkable 
scope, and, in endeavoring to sketch some of its prom- 
inent traits, I am greatly embarrassed in selecting my 
standpoint. There is indeed no one point from which 
we can readily catch all the features of interest that 
demand our attention. Intellectually considered, he 
was certainly gifted far, above the average of men; 
and there seemed to be no sphere of purely intellec- 
tive action in which he was not at home. His power 



ADDRESS. 45 

of observation was such as must have given him a 
high rank as a philosopher had he chosen any depart- 
ment of physical or metaphysical science as the field 
of his action. As a manufacturer he not only mastered 
the principles of mechanics, as combined in all the 
machines which he had occasion to use, but he added 
to their efficiency from the resources of his own inven- 
tive powers. Had he been disposed, he might have 
claimed several patent rights on the basis of improve- 
ments which he had made in machinery. He also 
acquired an equal mastery of the principles of hydro- 
statics and hydraulics, and was able to criticise the 
standard works on these subjects in such a manner 
as to show that his knowledge was not drawn from 
books merely, but was the result of the independent 
action of his own mind. Indeed, he devoted much 
time and money to original investigation in these 
matters. United with his remarkable powers of ac- 
curate observation of facts was a no less remarkable 
power of combining them in their logical relations, 
and deducing from them the general principles and 
laws of which they were the individual expressions. 
It would be difficult to find in any of our periodicals a 
more critical examination of Tyndall's recent work on 
heat than he gave in a single sitting after reading it ; 
nor have I seen a better exposition of Buckle's "History 
of Civilization" than he gave only a day or two after 
it was put into his hands. His power of concentration 
was really wonderful. By the mere exercise of his 
will, he seemed capable of directing all his intellectual 
powers to the investigation of a subject, and of hold- 
ing them there at his pleasure. It was my privilege 



46 ADDRESS. 

for some years to serve him somewhat in the capacity 
of a literary purveyor, and nothing surprised me more 
than the rapacity with which he devoured the contents 
of books. I well remember procuring for him a goodly 
octavo of vast learning, as well as of abstruse reason- 
in o- which I handed to him with the familiar remark, 
" You have been rather clamorous for books of late, 
Mr. Greene; there is one which I think will last you 
for some time." It was not a week before, having occa- 
sion to call on him, I found the work had been mastered 
and laid aside. I have known him to dispose of an 
ordinary duodecimo at a single sitting. 

He was evidently well versed in the principles of 
political economy, not in theory merely, but in their 
practical bearings ; nor did he fail at all in applying 
these principles to new junctures and untried cases. 
The policy which he adopted as a manufacturer in the 
important crises of the last ten years was oftentimes 
in direct opposition to the judgment of a large propor- 
tion, if not indeed of a large majority of men engaged 
in the same department of business, as well as of those 
immediately associated with him. Yet the results 
showed the correctness of his reasoning, and the sound- 
ness of his conclusions. 

His power of argumentation was seldom equalled, 
and rarely, if ever, surpassed. In addition to the quali- 
ties already mentioned, he possessed a remarkable grasp 
of intellect, which enabled him to bring all the points 
involved in a case of any complexity to their true rela- 
tions and logical bearings. And when, in controverted 
matters, all the facts had been stated, and their impor- 
tance duly considered, he rarely failed to carry convic- 



ADDRESS. 47 

tion by his statement of the argument. In these features 
of his character it was easy to see the effect of his early 
legal training and the thoroughness with which he had 
mastered the principles of his profession. It was easy 
to see how unfortunate it was for his fame that he ever 
left it. Had he continued in its practice, he must have 
attained a reputation as an advocate and jurist second 
to none at the American bar. I should also mention 
that he possessed a remarkably exact and retentive 
memory. This enabled him to carry in his mind with- 
out difficulty all the circumstances relating to a particu- 
lar case ; it was a treasure-house from which he drew 
at will the materials of thought and argument. I have 
heard him repeatedly run through the genealogies of 
Matthew and Luke, and, without opening his Bible, 
point out all their discrepancies, and the modes of rec- 
onciling them. But I cannot take you over the entire 
field of his intellectual powers. It is too varied and 
extended for an evening's discussion. He could criti- 
cise the qualities of Sea-Island and middling upland 
cotton, and he could distinguish the Jehovistic and 
Elohistic sections of the Pentateuch ; he could discuss 
the structure of the best form of the turbine wheel, 
and fortunate was that artist whose painting or whose 
sculpture revealed no defects to his just sense of the 
beautiful and the true. He would tell you all that was 
valuable in the last "Edinburgh Eeview," and he would 
give you a careful synopsis of the " Book of Wisdom," 
or of the "Gospel of Nicodemus." You would find him 
at one time exposing his health in tracing the path of 
a comet, and at another you would find him pointing 
out, from the observation of his naked eye, the error of 



48 ADDRESS. 

an engineer in the grading of a street. He proved 
himself the master of the hardest financial problems of 
his time, and he walked with easy step among the 
highest mysteries of faith. 

In passing from the intellectual to the moral features 
of his character, we find an expansion quite propor- 
tioned to the rank of these faculties in the spiritual 
framework. Here is the true sphere of manhood. 
Mere intellect, much as it is coveted, does not neces- 
sarily raise a man above a devil. In considering the 
moral qualities of Mr. Greene's character, all the ele- 
ments of a noble manhood rise before us in majestic 
symmetry. Do courage and conscientiousness and 
will-power constitute essential elements of manhood, 
where shall we find them in fairer proportions? Or do 
we regard the kindlier qualities of benevolence, gener- 
osity, and the domestic virtues, in whom have they 
shone with a brighter lustre? Had he been a common 
sailor, he would have been the first to climb to the 
mast-head when the topsails were flying into ribbons ; 
and had he been a common soldier, he would have 
been among the foremost, with steady nerve and un- 
faltering step, to enter the deadly breach spouting with 
fire. But to the dread trial of battle he was never 
called; yet he passed severer ordeals. John Milton 
tells, that 

" Peace hath her victories, 
No less renowned than war." 

The facts would have borne him out in a still stronger 
statement. Many a spirit has stood unmoved amid 
showers of grape and canister, that has proved a mere 
poltroon in the emergencies of civic and business life. 



ADDRESS. 49 

The crisis never came that he hesitated to look calmly 
in the face ; the man never lived whose eye could cause 
him to quail. To this high quality he owed much of 
his success. I believe there were man}^ perilous junc- 
tures in his life, which served merely as healthful tonics 
to him, which would quite have crushed many a spirit 
esteemed capable and brave.* A few illustrations must 

* I cannot forbear noticing here a striking resemblance between the 
character of Mr. Greene and of Messrs. Nathan and William Appleton. 

"'I am not afraid,' was his reply to a friend, ' to tell you the truth ; I 
believe I am not afraid of anything.' " — R. C. Winthrop's Memoir of Hon. 
Nathan Appleton. 

" ' I must be busy,' he said ; ' I don't know how to stop. ... I love best 
to do that which is the most difficult. ... That which others would not 
undertake, pleases me most. ... If my natural insight enables me to see 
farther than most men in certain directions, my nature also compels me to 
make use of this endowment. ... I can't help seeing openings for profit, 
neither can I help availing myself of them. I pray God to keep me from 
being avaricious and proud of my success ; but I cannot bear the shame of 
falling below my own powers, and being left behind by those who are not 
my equals.' " 

" We are going rapidly into paper currency. Prices of all kinds of stocks 
and commodities will materially advance. I cannot avoid taking an interest 
in speculations, and taking advantage of the rise which I foresee. I am 
endeavoring to show the younger part of the merchants that an old mer- 
chant of seventy-five has faculties and energy left. At the same time, I am 
thinking what I shall do with the profits on the pepper and saltpetre. I shall 
give part to the public, and part to destitute, friends." — Extracts from Me- 
moir of Hon. William Appleton, by Rev. Chandler Robbins, D. D. 

" I sometimes think myself a hypocrite," said Mr. Greene to me on one 
occasion. " I sit here and converse upon stocks and cotton, and trade in 
general, with business men who call upon me in relation to these matters, 
and I suppose they think me interested in these subjects. But I am not ; I 
mean to do my duty, but my heart is not in these matters." 

It was some time subsequent to this, in the last months of 1861, 1 think, 
that I called on Mr. Greene, and found him unusually cheerful, with a glow 
upon his countenance which led me to say to him, " I am happy to see you 
appear so well this evening, Mr. Greene ; you are better than usual, are you 
not?" "No," he replied, with a smile, "I don't know that I am. I pre- 
7 



50 ADDRESS. 

suffice. I have already alluded to the great revulsion 
of 1857. I never saw him more playful, or apparently 

sume I am a little excited ; I have spent a hundred and fifty thousand dol- 
lars since Friday," (this was Tuesday,) " and I am quite provoked that they 
will not let me spend any more." He referred to the difficulty he experi- 
enced in getting his agents in New York and Boston to purchase cotton as 
rapidly as he desired. 

Two intelligent manufacturers, speaking of these bold operations, said, 
" We were amazed at what seemed to us but reckless daring ; we thought 
he was crazy ; but he pi-obably doubled his money in these transactions." 

Some thirty years since, Mr. Greene made quite an extensive tour in the 
Southern States, and the tour was pretty fruitful in interesting incidents. 
At the end of a day's journey, in the thinly settled portions of North Caro- 
lina, the stage-coach in which he was travelling stopped at an inn, and the 
passengers, being quite overcome by the fatigues and dangers of the journey, 
were not disposed to proceed farther without a night's rest. There was a 
lady among the party in feeble health ; and, in view of all the circumstances 
of the case, an urgent appeal was made to the driver to stop for the night. 
The driver was a man of a good share of what is termed physical courage, 
a fair specimen of the barbarism of that region, quite reckless, and fully 
determined to proceed. Mr. Greene, finding that the efforts of others had 
proved unavailing, determined to try his own powers of influence and 
persuasion, but with no better success. The driver declared that he would 
go on if it cost him his life, and was proceeding to prepare his horses for 
a start, when Mr. Greene, placing himself in his path, and fixing upon him 
a look that could not be mistaken, said, " I should be very sorry to kill you, 
sir; but if you touch those horses, I shall not hesitate a moment." The 
driver saw that he had found his match, and the party rested for the night. 

While passing between two of the Southern ports in a sailing-packet, the 
vessel was overtaken by a severe gale, and to the imminent dangers from 
the storm were added those arising from a drunken captain. In this state 
of affairs the passengers felt that they must provide for their own safety, 
and they could only do this by making a change in the command of the 
vessel. It was proposed to place the mate in charge of the vessel, as the 
only way of saving their lives. This step was warmly advocated by Mr. 
Greene. Another passenger of less decision said to him, " Are you aware, 
sir, to what you are exposing yourself in advocating this measure ; are you 
aware that you are liable to be hung ?" "I should be very thankful," he 
replied, " for a reasonable chance of being hung ; the prospect now is that 
we shall all soon be drowned." 

The reader may be reminded of the remarks of John Foster : "In almost 



ADDRESS. 51 

more unconcerned. His activity, however, was surpris- 
ing. He travelled hundreds, if not thousands, of miles, 

all plans of great enterprise, a man must systematically dismiss at the 
entrance every wish to stipulate with his destiny for safety. He voluntarily 
treads within the precincts of danger; and though it be possible he may 
escape, he ought to be prepared with the fortitude of a self-devoted victim. 
This is the inevitable condition on which heroes, travellers, or missionaries 
among savage nations, and reformers on a grand scale, must commence their 
career. Either they must allay their fire of enterprise, or abide the liability 
to be exploded by it from the world." 

Let it not be thought that these and other incidents mentioned in pre- 
ceding notes, which show the positive traits of Mr. Greene's character in so 
strong a light, are at all at variance with the milder virtues mentioned in the 
text. The upsetting of tables and counters, and the general rout and scourg- 
ing of the profane and gambling crew that had placed their seats next the 
seat of God, 

" and with cursed things 
His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned," 

might not seem at first to harmonize with the spirit that cried, in the agony 
of dissolving nature, " Father, forgive them: they know not what they do; '•* 
the yearning for sympathy which prompted the seemingly timid and gentle 
rebuke, " What ! could ye not watch with me one hour ? " might at first view 
seem hardly consistent with the sublimest act of courage that the world has 
seen, and which palsied even the callous hearts of the Roman soldiers ; yet 
both belong to the same character and to the same hour. Thus closely are 
united, in the great Exemplar of human virtue, the purest tenderness and 
the highest heroism. 

Nor has Plomer omitted to join 

" The mildest manners with the bravest mind." 
The tribute of Helen to the gentleness of Hector, in the last book of the 
Iliad, has been the admiration of all ages, and the author of " Tom Brown " 
has made one of the most interesting incidents in his hero's career to turn 
upon it. 

" Hector, of all my brethren, dearest thou ! 

True, godlike Paris claims me as his wife, 

Who bore me hither, — would I then had died ! 

But twenty years have passed since here I came 

And left my native land; yet ne'er from thee 

I heard one scornful, one degrading word; 

And when from others I have borne reproach, 

Thy brothers, sisters, or thy brothers' wives, 



52 ADDRESS. 

(no small matter for him in his state of health,) cer- 
tainly not more in his own interest than in that of his 
friends. Most manufacturers at that time, with the in- 
terests involved in the management of more than thirty 
thousand spindles, found enough to occupy their atten- 
tion in the conduct of their own affairs. It was other- 
wise with him. The panic of that period never shook 
his spirit. A commission-house in a distant city, to 
whom he had made large consignments, saw him one 
bright October morning entering their counting-room. 
" Well," says he, " you know what I have come for : I 
have come for money; how are you situated?" "Well, 
sir, we can pay you," was the reply. "But what is 
your condition?" he rejoined. " Comfortable, sir, now; 
though we cannot say where we shall be three months 
from this time." "Show me your balance-sheet." "We 
will do so in a few hours, if you will call again." Call- 
ing at the appointed time, he examined their balance- 
sheet, and said to them, " Gentlemen, don't you pay me 
a cent." " But, sir," said they, " the money is now due, 
and it is only your right and duty to take it ; we can- 
not vouch for the future." " I did not ask your advice, 
gentlemen," he replied; "I shall not take a cent;" and 
so he left them. Hearing that another of his consignees 
was suffering under the terrible pressure, he hastened to 
his relief in person. Calling at his house in the early 

Or mother, (for thy sire was ever kind 

E'en as a father,) thou hast checked them still 

With kindly feeling and with gentle words. 

For thee I weep, and for myself no less; 

For through the breadth of Troy none love me now, 

None kindly look on me, but all abhor." 

Earl of Derby's version. 



ADDRESS. 53 

morning, before he had left for his counting-room, he 
placed in his hands a package containing forty thou- 
sand dollars. The surprised and grateful merchant 
protested against this generous act, as one of injustice 
to his noble friend's own interests ; but his remon- 
strances were of no avail ; he insisted upon his taking 
the money. Returning to Norwich, he sent him a hun- 
dred thousand dollars more, to be used as his necessities 
might require. This was all repaid in the course of a 
few months. " But," says the gentleman from whose 
letter I take the above facts, " the generosity of the 
whole transaction was such, it can never be effaced 
from my memory." " It may be proper to state," he 
adds, " that he had very little pecuniary interest in our 
concern, as we rendered an account of sales, and paid 
the amount every month, and of course we were very 
little indebted to him. I mention this to show that 
the course he pursued was not prompted by the fear of 
any pecuniary loss, but was simply the dictate of his 
noble and generous nature." Fearing that another 
commission-house whose paper he held to a consid- 
erable amount was in straitened circumstances, and 
not feeling that his slight personal acquaintance with 
them would justify his going to them himself, he 
hastened to a third party who was well acquainted 
with the firm in question, and, placing in his hands all 
their paper, requested him to go and assure his friends 
that their acceptances could be met entirely at their 
own convenience. Incidents of equal interest, illus- 
trating his magnanimity and fortitude, might be gath- 
ered from the experience of our business men in Nor- 
wich. In this way did this heroic man go through 



54 ADDRESS. 



that great financial hurricane. While others were 
taking in all sail, and running under bare poles, to 
use the nautical phrase, into the nearest and safest 
harbor, he spread every yard of canvas, and putting 
boldly out to sea in the very teeth of this terrible 
tornado, rode it out, and returned with not a mast 
sprung, or a sail rent, or a rope parted, laden not with 
the spoils which had been gathered on the breakers or 
in the quicksands, nor with living men whose fortunes 
had been rescued by a usurious redemption, but with 
the tributes of grateful hearts and devoted lives. He 
assured me that he never lost a cent in these trans- 
actions, even in a financial point of view ; and at the 
close of the year following, 1858, he said he never 
expected to see so good a year again. Surely there is 
some truth in the sayings of those old worthies, now so 
little read, that there is a scattering that increaseth, 
and a withholding that tendeth to poverty, and that 
godliness is gain. " His history during this whole 
period under consideration," remarks one of his corre- 
spondents, " deserves to be written in letters of gold." 
He met the great political crisis through which the 
nation is now passing with equal fortitude. He had 
fully considered the question at issue, and had pre- 
dicted years ago that it would not be settled without 
an appeal to arms. But this conviction inspired no 
dismay, nor abated in the least the opposition which he 
had always felt and expressed to the great system of 
wrong which was so rapidly incorporating itself into 
the very framework of the government. As scene 
after scene in the great drama was unfolded, as State 
after State renounced its allegiance to the "best gov- 



ADDRESS. 55 

eminent which the world ever saw," his spirit rose with 
the demands of the times ; and when the dread tocsin 
from Sumter sounded through the land, on the ever 
memorable 13th of April, he greeted it with something 
of the prophetic rapture which fired the soul of Sam- 
uel Adams, eighty-six years before, when, in an adjoin- 
ing field, hearing the first volley from Lexington Com- 
mon announcing that the great battle for liberty had 
begun, he threw up his arms and exclaimed, " Oh, what 
a glorious morning is this ! " Preeminently a man of 
peace, and strongly opposed to war as a matter of 
principle, he nevertheless felt that the decisive hour 
had come. During the long and anxious winter 
months of 1860-61, he had feared that this great 
tempest of war was soon to burst upon the land ; he 
feared much the material havoc and desolation of war, 
but he feared the moral degradation and shame of 
compromise more. He felt that the issue must be 
nobly met, or basely shunned. No man in the coun- 
try had gauged the dimensions of the contest more 
accurately than he. " He knew it was an era, and he 
met it," to use the language of another, — "he met it 
with feelings like those of Luther, when he denounced 
the sale of indulgences, and pointed his thunders at 
once, poor Augustine monk, against the whole civil and 
ecclesiastical power of the Church, the Quirinal, and 
the Vatican. He braved the storm of war as Columbus 
braved the stormy billows of the glorious ocean, from 
whose giddy, curling tops he seemed to look out as 
from a watch-tower, to catch the first hazy wreath in 
the west, which was to announce that a new world 
was found. The poor Augustine monk knew and was 



56 ADDRESS. 

persuaded that the time was come in which a mighty 
revolution was to be wrought in the Christian Church. 
The poor Genoese pilot knew in his heart that he had, 
as it were, but to stretch out the wand of his courage 
and skill, and call up a new continent from the depths 
of the sea;" and our departed friend beheld in the 
flames of Fort Sumter the beacon-light which heralded 
the return of the nation to the principles and practices 
of the fathers, and to the true spirit and genius of the 
Constitution. Through all the varying fortunes of the 
conflict he preserved the equanimity of his spirit : sad- 
dened, but not disheartened, by disaster; gladdened, but 
not transported, by success. When others were ready 
in their joy to proclaim the conflict ended, he saw that 
the war was yet in its earlier stages, and directed his 
business accordingly. It was my privilege frequently 
to be with him when the news of the day reached us 
in the afternoon papers ; and he would sometimes ask 
me to take the paper and read over the chief topics of 
intelligence. I shall never forget, that, on one occasion, 
while yet the great question was undecided, as I read 
some items of interest from the army, he inquired if 
any progress was made towards the solution of the 
great political problem respecting the African race. I 
read to him all that the paper contained upon that 
aspect of the question, in which there was nothing of 
special encouragement. He threw himself back in his 
chair, and remained for some time absorbed in thought; 
then rising, with that expression of countenance which 
showed that all the great moral elements of his nature 
were in their highest action, yet perfectly self-possessed, 
he said, in tones of the deepest sorrow, " I had hoped 



ADDRESS. 57 

that Mr. Lincoln would get his eyes opened before this 
time." Then, pacing his room, he remarked, with deep 
solemnity, " If I were forty years old, I would not be 
here." He soon resumed his seat, with a look which 
spoke with emphasis the great thought of Milton, — 

" God doth not need 
Either man's works or his own gifts. Who hest 
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state 
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed, 
And post o'er land and ocean without rest ; 
They also serve who only stand and wait." 

The whole scene was one not of interest merely : it 
was a true exhibition of the moral sublime. It was one 
of those occasions where a great soul imparts to action 
and to language a fulness and a depth of meaning far 
beyond what is contained in any or all of the lexicons. 
The words might have been uttered by many a trivial 
spirit, without producing any effect; but the action in 
this case was far beyond the reach of ordinary men. 
He seemed for the moment unreconciled to the lot to 
which his years and his infirmities consigned him, and 
like Achilles, when he looked out upon the field of 
conflict before Troy, and wished that the Greeks and 
Trojans might destroy each other, and make way for 
better men. He was, however, far from being censori- 
ous in his remarks upon the action of the administra- 
tion. He well understood the difficulties of their posi- 
tion ; he knew that it was far easier to criticise and 
complain than to plan and execute. He must, how- 
ever, at times, I think, have experienced a feeling like 
that of La Grange, when he sighed to think that it 
had not fallen to his lot to be born in Newton's time, 



58 ADDRESS. 

and have the first chance at the great problem of the 
universe. Conscious as he must have been of his 
ability to grapple with these great questions which 
have convulsed the world in our time, — questions that 
he so thoroughly understood, and the solution of which 
by the stern logic of events has followed so implicitly 
the logic of his reasoning, — the desire must have arisen 
in his mind, (as it certainly did in the minds of others,) 
not from vanity, but from virtue, that the force of his 
great abilities might be brought to bear on issues that 
have changed the course of our country's history. He 
knew, to use the bold figure of Macaulay, that it is the 
nature of the devil of tyranny to tear and rend the 
body which it leaves; but he regarded the convulsions 
of the terrible exorcism as of little account in compari- 
son with the torments of perpetual possession. In re- 
gard to slavery, the commencement of the Rebellion 
found him just where it is hoped it will leave the na- 
tion. He had early studied this great system of wrong 
in theory and in its practical effects, in the Old and 
New Testaments, and on the Southern plantation.* He 

* Reference has been made in a preceding note to a Southern tour which 
Mr. Greene made many years ago. His observations during this journey 
greatly strengthened his opposition to slavery. 

It was, I think, while he was stopping at a public-house in Richmond, 
that the following incident occurred. A gentleman in Richmond, with the 
reputation of a good and kind master, owned a faithful and valuable slave, 
who had been promised, as a reward for his fidelity, that he should never be 
sold. But his master, becoming involved in debt, felt obliged to resort to the 
readiest means for raising the necessary amount, and this seemed to be to 
sell his faithful slave to a slave-broker from the far South. After concluding 
the bargain, and signing the papers, he called the slave to him and said, 
" John, I am sorry to inform you that such is my urgent need of money 
that I have been obliged to sell you ; you have been a faithful servant, and 
I am very sorry to part with you ; I hope you will fall into the hands of a 



ADDRESS. 59 

hated it in its whole history and philosophy with that 
perfect hatred which he bore to oppression and wrong 
at all times and under all circumstances. His charities 
were never more frequent or generous than to all 
objects that promised relief and encouragement to the 
African race. He was not noisy in the proclamation 
of his views upon this subject, nor did he hesitate for 
an instant to incur whatever reproach might be con- 
nected with an honest and manly statement of his con- 
kind master." The negro dropped his head on receiving this announce- 
ment, and stood in silent sorrow for a moment ; then, raising his eyes to his 
master, he replied, " I think, then, Massa, you ought to sell my wife with 
me." " I did not think of that," replied the master ; " I had forgotten that 
you had a wife ; but I will do so ; your wife shall go with you." He called 
the broker, and stating to him the circumstance, requested him to buy the 
•wife of the slave whom he had already purchased. The broker objected. 
He said the wife would only be an incumbrance, &c. " Then," said the 
master, " give up the bargain which we have just made." " No," he said, he 
should not do that ; he had fairly bought and paid for his slave, and he 
should insist on the bargain. The poor master was helpless, and, calling 
again to him his former slave, informed him of the unavailing efforts which 
he had made to meet his wishes, and that he must go. The slave went 
directly into the back-yard,, where stood a chopping-block, and taking the 
axe in his right hand, he cut off his left hand by a single stroke. 

He travelled for some distance in Virginia in company with a planter of 
that region, who, finding that Mi-. Greene was from a free State, was very 
ready to enlighten him upon the blessings of their peculiar civilization, dwell- 
ing with great earnestness upon the peaceful and happy condition of the 
slave population. In the course of their conversation the planter alluded 
to his own children, whom he spoke of with parental interest and solicitude. 
" I suppose you bring up your sons and daughters to the hardest labor, and 
in utter ignorance, do you not ? " said Mr. Greene. " What do you mean, 
sir ? " replied the planter ; " do you mean to insult me, sir ? " " Not at 
all, not at all, sir," rejoined Mr. Greene ; " you show a father's interest and 
affection for your children, and I supposed you would certainly endeavor to 
secure for them what you have been representing as the happiest condition 
of human existence in the case of your slave population." The planter was 
silent. 



60 ADDRESS. 

victions. His history, in respect to this one question, 
would fill an interesting volume. 

After what I have said, it is almost superfluous to 
remark that his moral sense was as delicate as his 
courage was strong. In all his transactions with other 
men, where his personal interests were involved, he 
was careful to regard their rights before his own. I 
have often heard the remark made, "If I wished to 
get an advantage of Mr. Greene, I would put myself 
completely in his power." In pecuniary transactions 
he has been known to pay thousands more than his 
judgment dictated was due, that he might not incur 
even the suspicion of unduly favoring his own inter- 
ests. In one of the most trying junctures of his life 
he submitted his destiny entirely to the disposition of 
another party, and abided by their decision. In short, 
the moral faculty in his nature exercised the control to 
which its rank entitles it. The force of his nature 
was due not more to the strength of its individual 
elements than to their perfect correlation and subordi- 
nation. Hence there appeared a remarkable symmetry 
in his character. There was no harsh or abrupt tran- 
sition as you passed from its moral to its intellectual 
aspects. An equal power of will, with less of intellect 
and conscience, has produced a man of uncontrollable 
obstinacy; while an equally sensitive conscience, un- 
guided by intellect, or not enforced by the requisite 
propelling power of the will, has resulted in nothing 
more than a well-meant feebleness and imbecility. In 
the exercise of these high qualities he exacted from 
his physical powers an amount of service that seemed 
incredible. Notwithstanding the careful husbandry of 



ADDRESS. 61 

his strength, and the nice adjustment of his labors to 
times and circumstances, which he was compelled to 
observe, he continued, by his untiring energy, to work 
down men who regarded themselves as healthy and 
robust. An acquaintance of his who had known him 
forty years or more, writes me as follows : — 

" I was frequently called on by Mr. Greene to visit the large mills 
in Lowell, Lawrence, and Fall River ; and it was on these occasions 
that I became acquainted with his determined perseverance and 
great activity. In the hottest weather of July and August he would 
look over these large establishments from basement to attic, examin- 
ing critically the machinery, and all new inventions and improve- 
ments. You know how slight he was. It seemed to me as though 
his strength could not hold out ; but such was his energy and per- 
severance that I found it difficult to keep pace with him. And such 
seemed to be his course through life. I never knew a man more 
determined or more energetic." 

I regret that it is not in my power to furnish some 
definite statistics illustrating the nature and extent of 
his benevolence ; but he left no memoranda of his con- 
tributions to the various charities that shared in his 
generosity. He was a regular contributor to the great 
societies which have served as channels for Christian 
benevolence during the past fifty years ; to none how- 
ever, I think, was he more sincerely attached than to 
the American Peace Society. Truth, however, requires 
me to say that he had begun to feel some distrust in 
the colossal dimensions which these organizations were 
assuming ; not that he thought less of their professed 
purposes, but because he feared that the real objects of 
these charities would be sacrificed to the magnificence 
of the machinery by which they are conducted. He 
knew well the dangers which beset voluntary associa- 



62 ADDRESS. 

tions when they have passed what we may term their 
heroic age. He knew that benevolence might become 
fashionable, and that fashionable giving was not Chris- 
tian charity. None understood better than he the 
difference between the widow's mite and the sancti- 
monious offering of the purse-proud Pharisee. And he 
knew also that there are Pharisees in our own times, 
no less in numbers and no meeker in spirit than those 
that guarded the temple at Jerusalem against the 
heretical teachings of the young carpenter from Naza- 
reth. He knew how easily and how imperceptibly an 
association which was Christian in its original method 
and purpose might be transformed into a mere propa- 
ganda of a sect, and that the real essence of Christian 
charity consists in bringing, as far as possible, the 
Christian man into personal and spiritual contact with 
his less favored brother in the true spirit of that lan- 
guage which he would often repeat with such touching 
pathos, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." 
And this was the spirit that inspired all his charities. 
I have sometimes heard it said that it was no virtue 
in Mr. Greene to give, because his nature was so 
generous. This remark does him great injustice. It 
is true that his nature was generous, and that he was 
incapable of the close -fistedness that characterizes 
some men; but it is none the less true that his benev- 
olence was the dictate of principle. I have known him 
to decline giving a dollar when the object for which 
it was solicited did not meet his approbation, and that, 
too, when he was incurring ill-will by refusing to give; 
and I have known him to give thousands unsolicited 



ADDRESS. 63 

when he saw an occasion that seemed to him to demand 
it. From the auri sacra fames, the greed of gain, which 
eats like a gangrene into so many natures and utterly 
destroys every principle of true manhood, he was 
entirely free. When such cases were brought to his 
notice, he would speak of them with as much sorrow 
and in the same manner as he would speak of cases 
of intemperance or any other form of vicious indul- 
gence. 

The qualities which I have noticed, you must have 
observed, are those which, in connection with some 
others, constitute the basis of the strongest and warm- 
est friendships. The principles on which he founded 
his friendships were far different from those which enter 
into the composition of that which often passes under 
the name. " I have no fellowship," he once remarked, 
" for the commonly received maxim that business is 
one thing and friendship another. " " If," he continued, 
u a man is my friend, I have a right to go to him in my 
necessity; and I should think little of my friendship for 
a man, if he did not feel at liberty to come to me for 
assistance in his time of need :" and, strange to say, not 
a half-hour had elapsed after he made this remark 
before application was made to him for a loan of five 
hundred dollars for a friend, which he at once granted, 
with far more apparent pleasure than if it had been 
invested in a form which promised a speculative profit. 
The holidays, as they are called, the week between 
Christmas and New Year's, he used to term his Satur- 
nalia ; and he claimed the privilege at this season, as 
he said, of treating his friends just as he saw fit, with- 
out any right of redress on their part. The nature of 



Q4 ADDKESS. 

this treatment you can infer from the following note 
which I have been permitted to copy. 

"Norwich, Jan. 1. 
" My dear Brother, — 

" There is one day of all others in the year which I regard more 
particularly as my own, and therefore on which I the more like to 
have my own way, and I think it would not be kind in you to oppose 
me. One year since I hardly thought I should live to see this day, 
and to unite with my friends here in mutual kind wishes which the 
day so appropriately suggests. But the Lord has continued me here 
until now. What all his purposes are in so doing I know not. But 
I trust they are for good, and I think one of them I know. He says 
to me, You hold a certain bond of my brother ; have I not paid it ? 
Even so, Lord Jesus, in thy name, blessed forever, I send it unto him.* 

" In the bonds of love, and I hope humbly of Christian brotherhood, 

" Yours, 

"Wm, P. Greene." 

On another occasion he said to a friend, whose tears 
bore witness to the depth of his gratitude for the favor 
he was receiving, "Don't be disturbed, sir; I am only 
doing for you what I know you would do for me, were 
our circumstances reversed ; I may need your aid yet." 
And so I might continue for an hour. When he knew 
a friend was in need, he oftentimes did not wait for him 
to come for aid : he sought him out, and when he had 
relieved his wants, he left him a free man. He was 
careful not to wound one's self-respect by striving to 
make him feel that he had received a great favor which 
should be held in lasting remembrance. On the con- 
trary, he strove to lighten the load of obligation which 
his kindness could not but inspire. Some of his noblest 

* This letter enclosed obligations to the amount of more than two thou- 
sand five hundred dollars. 



ADDRESS. 65 

acts were performed in an indirect and playful "way, 
and he seemed rather to shun than to court the ex- 
pressions of thankfulness to which they gave rise. 
When, however, a token of gratitude was handed to 
him as a recognition of obligation for some previous 
favor, he received it in such a way as to assure the 
giver that he highly prized the attention that was 
shown him. But by far the greater portion of these 
generous deeds were known only to the recipients and 
to his God. What I have mentioned are only a few 
of the flowerets that have been casually gathered along 
the pathway of his life. 

In social intercourse he exhibited superior powers of 
conversation, and very few subjects could be mentioned 
which he was not qualified to discuss. He greatly 
enjoyed earnest and friendly contact with other minds, 
and was delighted to find himself ably confronted in 
argument. He would sometimes espouse the weak side 
of an argument for the purpose of testing the strength 
of his opponent, always contriving, however, to let him 
know before concluding the views which he actually 
held. A clergyman, a stranger to him, once called on 
him to solicit a contribution for an important object. 
Without noticing the request, he began at once in all 
apparent seriousness to assail the cause for which aid 
was solicited, and thus put the applicant on the de- 
fensive. Surprised by the vehemence with which his 
cause was attacked by a man from whom much aid 
had been expected, he made an elaborate defence, and 
was not sparing in his exhortations and warnings 
against fatal errors and damnable heresies. The result 
was the very unexpected reception of a donation twice 



66 ADDRESS. 

as large as he had anticipated, with the kind remark 
that, as he had defended his cause so well, he was 
entitled to that. Applicants for charity were frequently 
subjected to pretty serious cross -questioning in this 
way ; and from them, as well as from other sources, he 
derived a very accurate knowledge of the various 
charities before the Christian public. 

In the lighter forms of conversation, in sallies of wit 
and humor, he was always at home. But entertain- 
ing as he ever showed himself in these respects, his 
preference was for the more serious subjects in social 
discussion. He was able to make one feel perfectly at 
home in his society ; and though his manners were 
dignified and refined, and even courtly when the occa- 
sion required, his habit was to renounce all mere man- 
nerism, and both to observe himself and encourage in 
others that cordial and familiar freedom and ease which 
no system of etiquette can secure, and no formal con- 
ventionalism can compass. What Pope has said of 
style in writing applies with striking force to his style 
of social and friendly intercourse : — 

" Great wits may sometimes gloriously offend, 
And rise to faults true critics dare not mend ; 
From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part, 
And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art, 
Which, without passing through the judgment, gains 
The heart, and all its end at once attains." 

Few people in Norwich who knew Mr. Greene are 
without their fund of anecdotes illustrative of the sim- 
plicity and cordiality, and at the same time of the 
peculiarity, of his habits of social intercourse. 

But there yet remains for our consideration the 
highest and fairest portion of his character. 



ADDRESS. 67 

The Christian is the highest style of man, and it is 
in its Christian aspects that Mr. Greene's constitution 
invites the closest scrutiny and presents its greatest 
strength. Perhaps, indeed, I have been contemplating 
the elements of his nature in an inverted order. It 
might have been better for me to have regarded the 
great qualities which we have been considering as the 
outgrowth of the deep Christian convictions on which 
they rested. But it has seemed to me preferable to 
take our last view of the man from the battlements 
and bastions that command his entire character. His 
religious development partook strongly of the individ- 
uality that marked the whole life. In giving a brief 
sketch of him as a Christian, I deem it a sacred duty, 
so far as I am able, to present the man as he actually 
was. There is a morbid sensitiveness in' some minds 
which hesitates to state with frankness any view which 
deviates from the standards of a generally received 
orthodoxy. It is felt by some that any deviation from 
the creed or the rubric, however pure or devout the 
life which accompanies it may be, is just so far an 
abatement from the integrity of Christianity, and 
hence encouraging what is termed a dangerous ten- 
dency. Such religionists, had they written the evangel- 
ical records, would never have mentioned the doubts of 
Thomas, the lapses of Peter, and the noble contentions 
of Paul with his fellow-apostles. The eminently hu- 
man, and consequently instructive, features of these 
narratives would have had some of their most valuable 
lessons sacrificed to a tame conformity to the decretals 
of some council at Jerusalem, by which the virtues and 
the failings of every individual believer would have 



68 ADDRESS. 

been rounded into ethical propriety and theological 
soundness. But inasmuch as those evangelists wrote 
not for a sect or a party or a system, but simply to 
perpetuate in human lives the life of the Master, there 
are found many loose ends and rough corners which 
have sorely perplexed theological architects for these 
eighteen centuries. I make these remarks, not because 
I am about to startle you by the announcement of 
some monstrous heresy, but because the faith of our 
lamented friend was rather Christian than theological. 
It is expressed more accurately in the words of the 
great Teacher himself, as recorded by the fourth evan- 
gelist, " Believe in God and believe in me," * than in 
the creeds of Augustine and Athanasius. His religious 
faith was preeminently Christian; and his seeming 
rejection of what some men regard as cardinal points 
of doctrine was due rather to the wider range of 
his views resulting from profound study of the sacred 
Scriptures, and to his further advance in the divine life, 
than to any denial of fundamental truths. Placing 
himself boldly and firmly upon the foundation of the 
Apostles and Prophets, with Jesus Christ himself as 
the chief corner-stone, he felt that the whole series of 
councils, synods, confessions, creeds, and platforms, were 
only so far binding upon him as their results were 
based upon the teachings of the inspired Word. To 
those who rest content in a limited number of dogmas 
as comprising the sum total that is known or can be 
known of the great salvation that was wrought by 
Jesus, and who find in these dogmas a refuge for their 

* This is both Campbell's and Norton's version of John xiv. 1, and is 
without doubt the true rendering. 



ADDRESS. 69 

ignorance and an apology for their indolence, as well 
as a pardon for their sins, the views which he enter : 
tained would seem lax and heretical. It is true that 
he, in common with the leading theological thinkers of 
this century, reached, as the result of patient and prayer- 
ful study, conclusions rather negative than positive. 
In his earlier religious life he felt it his duty to follow 
without questioning the prescriptions of ecclesiastical 
and theological authority. He trod with exemplary 
patience the weary rounds of the metaphysical tread- 
mills in which so many have wasted their lives, and he 
toiled at those enigmas which have puzzled hundreds of 
generations, and will puzzle hundreds more. From these 
spiritual toils — which Lord Macaulay so aptly com- 
pares to the labors of the damned in the Grecian Tar- 
tarus, spinning forever on the same wheel round the 
same pivot, gaping forever after the same deluding clus- 
ters, pouring water forever into the same bottomless 
buckets, pacing forever to and fro on the same wea- 
risome path after the^same recoiling stone — he rose 
at length to a higher and simpler and more confid- 
ing faith in the Father through the Son. He pre- 
ferred to listen to the Sermon on the Mount, to catch 
the words of spirit and life that were spoken to the 
fishermen of Galilee, the woman of Samaria, and the 
mourners of Bethany, rather than to talk of election, 
reprobation, and final perseverance. Nor did he less 
delight in the sterner lessons which were given by the 
great Teacher of mankind. The pregnant woes pro- 
nounced against a corrupt hierarchy in his last visit 
to the Temple, the mournful predictions of impending 
wrath which were uttered from the side of Olivet, the 



70 ADDRESS. 

moral heroism of Stephen, and the manly self-defences 
of Paul in almost every city of the known world,— all 
these and their kindred scenes received a reverent 
welcome from his great spirit, and found in him a 
sympathy which few are able to accord to them. 

He possessed in an eminent degree that rare quality 
which we may term intellectual sincerity, the ability 
to examine any theory or any principle with perfect 
candor and impartiality. He understood perfectly the 
difference between defending a position and examining 
it ; and that in religious matters men often think they 
are seeking for truth, when they are only erecting de- 
fences around what they have already decided to be 
truth. This sincerity of which I have spoken will 
often assume the appearance of a cold indifference to 
the enthusiastic partisan and sectarian. Such was the 
case with Mr. Greene. Many who conversed with him 
on religious subjects left him with the impression that 
he was indifferent or hostile to the truth, simply be- 
cause he could see and feel the force of objections 
which they either could not or would not consider. 
The presence of a clear and penetrating intellect 
seemed to them to indicate the absence of a warm and 
devout heart. The fearlessness with which he exam- 
ined the most cherished articles of their belief appeared 
to them almost like an irreverent intrusion into forbid- 
den sanctities. The perfect liberty which he had found 
in Christ reverently to examine all things, whether 
Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or 
death, or things present, or things to come, could hard- 
ly seem otherwise than profane to those who seldom or 
never question the traditions of the fathers, or trouble 



ADDRESS. 71 

themselves with the higher verities of the Christian 
faith. He had little patience with the timid conserva- 
tism so often met with, which trembles for the stability 
of the whole temple of truth, because some resolute 
worshipper insists upon removing some of the rubbish 
which in the progress of centuries has gathered in its 
sacred courts, and defiled its hallowed altars. Nor did 
he, to change the figure and adopt the language of 
another, regard with much favor that " skeptical credu- 
lity of feeble-minded piety, which dreads the cutting 
away of an orthodox misbelief as if the life-blood of 
faith would follow, and would keep even a stumbling- 
block in the way of salvation, if only generations 
enough have tripped over it to make it venerable." 
He believed that there is nothing so indestructible as 
truth; and since the eternal years of God are hers, 
he felt assured that the clouds and mists which igno- 
rance and bigotry, or false friends or open enemies, 
might raise, would soon disappear before her bright- 
ness, as the mists of the morning before the rising sun. 
He was accordingly always found in the vanguard of 
the religious thinkers of the age ; and as he knew that 
the excessive ardor of the valiant soldier is more easily 
forgiven than the sloth and cowardice of the straggler, 
he preferred to share in the dangers of the front, rather 
than in those of the rear ; to join in the first shout of 
triumph on the enemy's ramparts, rather than expose 
himself to the dangers of the pursuing foe ; to hazard, 
in a steady adherence to the great Master, all the hor- 
rors and honors of the cross, rather than enjoy the 
safety and shame of the straggling Peter. He knew 
that the heresies of indolence and cowardice were far 



9 ADDRESS. 



greater than those of industry and courage ; that in 
things spiritual as in things temporal, in Church as in 
State, in the individual mind as in the associated minds 
of a whole community, the dangers of activity and en- 
terprise bear no proportion to those of sloth and stag- 
nation. In short, as it was in the great tragedy of 
Gethsemane, so it has always been ; a period of sloth 
and sleep betrays the Son of Man into the hands of 
sinners ; the conservative and thoughtless disciples en- 
joyed their quiet slumbers, while their solitary Master 
was sweating blood. 

I scarcely need add, after making these remarks, that 
he took the liveliest interest in the questions which now 
agitate the thinking portion of the Christian world. 
He was not simply well informed upon the points at 
issue, but attained that mastery of them which is 
only surpassed by those who have made these subjects 
their specialty. He manifested great eagerness to get 
hold of every volume pertaining to either side of 
these controversies. He followed the fortunes of Dr. 
Davidson and the Bishop of Natal with lively interest, 
not so much from entire sympathy with their views, 
as because he esteemed them honest men ; and he felt 
keenly the disgrace that was brought upon the Chris- 
tian name in heaping upon them, as was done in some 
quarters, personal abuse, instead of meeting them with 
manly courtesy and scholarly logic. He believed that 
God had sent his Son into the world, that the world 
through him might be saved; and he had no fears that 
Bishop Colenso and the Oxford scholars would defeat 
the plan, and compel its abandonment. 

A clergyman of high standing and extensive influ- 



ADDRESS. 73 

ence, who had known Mr. Greene for twenty years or 
more, and had had frequent occasion to call upon him, 
thus writes me in regard to his views of his charac- 
ter : — 

" I well recollect being very forcibly struck with his strongly marked 
individuality, with the versatility and vigor of his powers, with the 
freshness and originality of his views on almost every subject, and 
with the accuracy, minuteness, and extent of his knowledge. In all 
my acquaintance with men of talent and culture, I can recall scarce 
one that impressed me so deeply in these respects ; and seldom if ever 
did I retire from one of these interviews without feeling my inferiority, 
and my obligations for the most valuable thoughts which he had given 
me. I could not help wondering how a man of such frail and preca- 
rious health, and with an amount of business on his hands sufficient 
to tax a frame of iron and nerves of steel, came to have at ready com- 
mand such a fund of various and profound knowledge on almost every 
conceivable topic. I can hardly give particulars, but cannot refrain 
from alluding to one or two. In one interview we happened to touch 
upon the Book of Job ; and I was surprised to find him so familiar — 
more than one clergyman in a hundred — with the history, character, 
and peculiar difficulties of that singular production. He extemporized 
a learned disquisition that would have done credit even to a professor 
of sacred literature in one of our theological seminaries. At another 
time the subject of modern spiritualism came up ; when I found him 
ready at once to dissect and expose its pretensions with the keen dis- 
crimination and knowledge of facts and principles that you would ex- 
pect only from an adept in philosophy and natural science." 

Another gentleman of high intelligence, who had 
known him for thirty years, while conversing with me 
quite enthusiastically in regard to his character, ex- 
claimed, upon my alluding to his knowledge on biblical 
subjects, " Yes, he used to knock me about like a shut- 
tlecock." He always kept his Greek Testament and 
lexicon by his side, and though he made no pretensions 

to what is now termed accurate Greek scholarship, he 
10 



74 



ADDRESS. 



was able to form a correct estimate of the critical labors 
of others upon the original text. He was not content 
with our common English version ; he had always at 
hand the Septuagint, with the other most approved 
translations of the Old and New Testaments. He was 
also well acquainted with the Apocryphal writings, 
and the Apostolic Fathers. He studied these as side- 
lights to the canonical Scriptures, and drew from other 
collateral sources to an extent quite remarkable for a 
layman. I must not forget to mention that he indulged 
himself but seldom in the expression of his devotional 
feelings ; he inclined much more in conversation to 
dwell upon those topics which concern our relations 
to God, and the interpretation of the Scriptures. This 
apparent reserve led me for some time to fear that he 
had neglected the culture of the affections, in his deep 
devotion to the more speculative aspects of religious 
truth. But this I found to be a great mistake. The 
fervor of his feelings was fully proportioned to the 
extent of his religious knowledge ; and I speak what 
I know, when I affirm that his habits of devotion 
were regular, and his communion with his Maker inti- 
mate and constant. He avoided the free use of lan- 
guage so commonly employed in social religious inter- 
course, from the conviction that these expressions often 
indicate the absence rather than the presence of true 
devotional feeling. He abhorred cant on all subjects, 
and especially hi religion. His yea was yea, and his 
nay was nay, and language with him was the vehicle, 
not the substitute, for thought and feeling. By far the 
highest exhibition of faith and resignation I ever wit- 
nessed, was in an hour's interview with him on his 



ADDRESS. 75 

return from the grave of her who for forty years had 
trod the paths of life by his side, and whose virtues he 
seemed at a loss for words fitly to describe. 

If to do justice and to love mercy, if clean hands and 
a pure heart, if visiting the fatherless and widows in 
their affliction, and keeping himself unspotted from the 
world, if love to God, and love to man as God's creature, 
of whatever rank, complexion, or condition, if an hum- 
ble and childlike faith in Jesus as the great manifesta- 
tion of the Father, — if these, or any other tests which 
may be gathered from the inspired Word, constitute any 
criterion of Christian character, he certainly, whatever 
may have been his views of the systems of Rome, of 
Oxford, or Geneva, was entitled to this greatest of all 
names. 

I have thus touched upon some of the prominent 
points of the character which we have met this evening 
to commemorate. But I feel, as those of you who really 
hieio him must also feel, how far I have failed to pre- 
sent the man. No one can realize more deeply than I 
do how far my dull mosaic falls below the reality of the 
life which a few months ago was passing among us as 
a stream of beneficent beauty and power. But what 
rhetoric or what sculpture can worthily exhibit so 
grand a reality ? What language can properly speak 
the music of that voice which trembled with tenderness 
and love, or the expression of that eye when moistened 
with tears of affection, or the overwhelming power of 
that manner when he changed to sterner moods ? The 
majesty of that presence in which no one might trifle, 
the benignity with which he conferred a favor, the hu- 
mor with which he provoked your laughter, the warm 



76 ADDRESS. 

sympathy with which he made another's grief his own, 
the loathing, withering scorn with which he looked 
upon every form of falsehood and deceit, the resistless 
force of his logic, — all these indeed may be sketched 
individually, but not as a united and harmonious whole. 
These high qualities in their due relation and recipro- 
cal action exhibited a harmony, a strength, and a gran- 
deur of character as far above the best pictures of 
language as the speaking life is above the motionless 
features of the silent canvas. 

To some, the views which I have taken may seem 
exaggerated : I Jcnoio them to be tame. But such, I 
apprehend, were really unacquainted with the man, 
or fail to comprehend the important truth that private, 
no less than public life, has its heroes, and that their 
heroism is none the less real because it is not set off 
to the view by any of the attractions of official station. 
We must not forget the often-quoted remark of De 
Tocqueville, the most philosophical writer on Amer- 
ican society and institutions, that nothing surprised 
him more than the wealth of talent in this country 
in private life, and its poverty in public life. It is 
precisely here that we see the real greatness of Mr. 
Greene's character. Possessing all the elements of a 
great political leader, (unless, indeed, it be thought that 
he lacked that moral flexibility which the exigencies 
of political life are sometimes thought to require,) he 
yet chose to remain undistinguished in the ranks of the 
humblest citizenship, content with realizing, so far as 
possible, his own ideas of excellence, and diffusing their 
influence in the community. As I retired from some 
of those interviews which it was my privilege often to 



ADDRESS. 77 

have with him, those choice and blessed hours when 
the world and its interests were forgotten, and he un- 
consciously fell into his happiest strains of colloquial 
discussion, when the course of his thoughts seemed like 
the flow of a majestic river, — 

" Though deep, yet clear ; though gentle, yet not dull ; 
Strong without rage ; without o'erflowing, full ; " 

while I pondered upon the great lessons which he 
drew from the past, his ready solution of the problems 
of the present, and his almost oracular predictions of 
the future, I was often reminded of the lines of Cole- 
ridge, - — 

" How seldom, friend ! a good great man inherits 
Honor or wealth, with all his worth and pains ! 
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits, 
If any man obtain that which he merits, 
Or any merit that which he obtains. 

" For shame, dear friend ! renounce this canting strain ! 
What wouldst thou have a good great man obtain ? 
Place — titles — salary — a gilded chain — 
Or throne of corses which his sword hath slain ? — 
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends ! 
Hath he not always treasures, always friends, 
The good great man ? — three treasures, love and light, 
And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath ; 
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night, — 
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death." 

I have seen two of the chief magistrates of the 
nation, the one in his career of triumph through the 
towns and cities of the land, the guest of legislative 
and academic bodies, and, for the time, the very cyno- 
sure of the popular gaze, the other dispensing in the 



78 ADDRESS. 

Executive mansion the honors of the nation to learned 
and diplomatic bodies, in all the pomp and circum- 
stance of the highest official station ; the first now fills 
a traitor's grave, the second is running the last sands 
of life in an obscurity from which not even his friends 
would recall him ; and I have seen William P. Greene 
in the retirement of his study and counting-room, 
directing with beneficent wisdom the industrial life of 
whole communities, dispensing in copious showers and 
gentle dews the bounty which his talents and energy 
had acquired, holding high converse with the good and 
great of all ages, " aloof from the competitions and 
the prizes, the mean jealousies, the hollow pretences, 
the brutal vilifyings, the base intrigues, and the measure- 
less corruptions of public life, looking down from the 
serene height of his consistency and his principles, upon 
their paltry ambition and its more paltry rewards." 

But let us contemplate for a moment the results of 
the life which we have been considering. What is its 
import and significance to the generation and the com- 
munity to which it belonged ? What is its rank among 
human lives ? Lord Bacon, in his essay upon Honor, 
has given us the degrees of both "sovereign" and "sub- 
ject" honor; and first in the scale of sovereign honor 
he has placed what he terms the "conditores imperioriim" 
or founders of States, and as illustrations of this order 
of greatness has mentioned Romulus and Cyrus and 
Csesar; then come the " legislator es" or lawgivers, the 
second founders of States ; and to these succeed the 
. " salvatorcs," or deliverers ; and in the fourth place the 
" propugnatores imperii" or warriors who enlarge their 
country's boundaries; and lastly, the "patres patriae" 



ADDRESS. 79 

or fathers of their country. The several degrees of 
honor in the subject or citizen he characterizes as, first, 
the "participes curantm," or prime ministers ; second, the 
" duces belli" or great captains ; third, the " gratiosi," or 
favorites, those who, ivithout doing any harm to mankind, 
have been successful in pleasing their sovereigns (a singular 
order of merit surely ; we should suppose that court- 
jesters and court -fools are referred to*); and lastly, 
the " negotiis pares," the ministers of State. In all these 
degrees of honor we find no place for him whose loss 
we deplore ; no, nor even for Lord Bacon himself in 
that aspect of his character for which alone he would 
thank mankind to remember him. Lord Bacon, the 
philosopher, the great founder of modern science, could 
not, as I see, be ranked in any of these degrees which 
he has arranged to comprise all the orders of sovereign 
and subject merit. Far different was the estimate of 
the great Koman poet. In the Elysian fields, in com- 
munion with poets and heroes, with the founders of 
States, with Orpheus, Ilus, and Dardanus, has he fixed 
the abodes of 

* If Dr. John Doran's somewhat irreverent suspicion be worthy of notice, 
the claims of court-jesters to the honors of the gratiosi are not to be treated 
lightly. In the supplementary chapter to his History of Court -Fools, 
published in the Book of Days, Dr. Doran says : " There are four years of 
Shakspeare's life (1585-9) during which nothing is known of his where- 
abouts. In a letter addressed by Sir Philip Sidney from Utrecht, 1586, to 
his father-in-law,Walsingham, there is a passage to this effect, — ' I wrote to 
you a letter by Will, my Lord of Leicester's jesting-player.' Who was this 
jesting-player ? He may have been AVill Johnson, Will Sly, Will Kimpe, 
or, as some have thought, even the immortal William himself." If Lord 
Bacon had derived his ideas of favorites from such men as William Shak- 
speare, it is not surprising that he has placed them one degree above the 
" ministers of State." But Shakspeare's feats as jesting-player had better 
be treated under the same head as his exploits in deer-stealing, — Shak- 
spearean Mythology. 



80 ADDRESS. 

" Searching wits of more mechanic parts, 
Who sraced their age with new-invented arts." * 

And who will not say that in this instance the in- 
spiration of the poet transcends the wisdom of the 
philosopher ? 

Lord Bacon wrote in the palmiest days of the Tudor 
and Stuart dynasties, when the great forces of the 
human mind had already shaken the spiritual despot- 
isms of the Continent, and were soon to burst with 
explosive violence beneath the throne of England's 
king ; he wrote at a time when the human mind had 
already become weary of the old Organon of Aristotle, 
and the senseless jargon of the schoolmen, and was 
waiting for a new dispensation in science, which the 
great Chancellor himself was destined to inaugurate ; 
he wrote at a time when kings ruled by divine right, 
and subjects rebelled at the risk not only of civil but 
ecclesiastical censure, when rank was omnipotent and 
manhood lightly esteemed. Had he written in our day; 
could he behold the wonderful change in human affairs 
which his philosophy has wrought, — how kings have 
declined, and subjects risen in importance; could he see 
the great results that have flown from his new method, 
from observation and experiment, from the application 
of the great forces of nature to the whole sphere of 
human wants ; could he, I say, behold all this, he would 
revise his scales of honor ; he would at least make 
provision for himself in his orders of merit ; he would 

* " Hie manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi, 
Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat, 
Quique pii vates, et Phoebo digna locuti, 
Inventas aut qui vitam excoluei*e per artes, 
Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo." 



ADDRESS. 81 

make provision not only for the royal names of New- 
ton and Leibnitz, but also for the Arkwrights and 
Fultons, the Hargreaveses and Whitneys, and a host 
of philosophers and inventors who have arisen un- 
der the stimulus which he gave to human thought. 
Could he contrast the England of to-day with the 
England over which the Tudors reigned, and see all 
the great discoveries and generalizations and applica- 
tions, from the great induction of Newton to the last 
equally grand generalization of the philosophers of the 
Royal Institution ; could he take in at one view the 
highest and most abstruse teachings of the Royal 
Society, and follow these through all their applications 
to meet the wants and elevate the condition of the 
humblest peasant ; could he see more work done in 
a single day and in a single mill in Manchester than 
was done in the whole kingdom of Elizabeth in a 
month ; could he glance at the last half-century of 
our New-England history, and see how, from the moral 
courage and inventive genius of comparatively few 
men, — the Slaters, the Lowells, the Jacksons, the Law- 
rences, the Appletons, and the Greenes, — our sterile 
soil has become dotted with manufacturing cities and 
villages, how the wilderness and solitary place have 
been glad for them, and the desert has rejoiced and 
blossomed as the rose ; could he see how all the bright 
visions of his fancy in the "New Atlantis" have here 
become the sober realities of history, that within the 
compass of a single generation a city founded on the 
banks of the Merrimack- has grown to greater impor- 
tance than Rome had attained when she drove out the 

Tarquins, that the spinning and weaving of a single 
11 



82 ADDRESS. 

week in Lowell would have supplied the whole em- 
pire of Augustus for half a lifetime, — he might have 
found, for the names I have mentioned, a place as hon- 
orable as he has accorded to the leader of vagabonds 
and fugitives who settled on the slopes of the Palatine. 
Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, when the history of this 
country in this century shall be written in the spirit in 
which Macaulay has recorded the history of England, 
when the progress and condition of the people, the 
real sovereigns of our land, shall be faithfully stated, it 
will be seen that the foundations of our greatness and 
strength were laid, not by families that came in with 
the Conqueror, not by the heirs of the old European 
despotisms, nor by the offshoots from the crumbling 
houses of their nobilities, but by plebeian minds and 
plebeian hands ; not by the blood of the Cavaliers were 
nourished the sinewy arms that have smitten the hydra 
of Rebellion as with the club of Hercules, but by the 
stern old Saxon, which courses as briskly through our 
veins as it did in those of Egbert and Alfred. Not 
from the baronial castles and tapestried halls of Eng- 
land's proud names are derived the patents of our no- 
bility, but from our farms, our cotton and woollen mills, 
and our machine-shops. In these, not in our arsenals 
and armories, nor even in our banks, are the real hid- 
ings of the nation's power. Our greasy mechanics (let 
us accept this term of insult, and make it as honored 
in the world's history as our fathers made those of 
Puritan and Roundhead) can show in our Patent-Of- 
fice, as the products of their achievements, devices 
more expressive and blazonry more brilliant than are 
found in all the records and emblems of heraldry. 



ADDRESS. 83 

When the sons and daughters of Norwich gathered, a 
few years since, to celebrate their bicentennial jubilee, 
our honored friend flung to the breeze, from his modest 
family mansion, as his armorial ensign, a goodly length 
of cotton cloth, with the motto, " Not ashamed of his 
occupation ; " and well might he glory in an occupation 
in the pursuit of which he had been able to do more 
for Norwich than any other man who ever lived here, — 
in which he did for this city what Boott and Jackson 
did for Lowell, the Lawrences for Lawrence; — well 
might he glory in an occupation which places him in 
the front rank of our New-England nobility. 

When the antiquaries of the next century shall in- 
vestigate the etymologies of the names of our indus- 
trial cities, they will not be obliged to do as a modern 
author has done, who spent 

" a hundred leaves 
To prove his ancestors notorious thieves ; " 

nor will they find them based upon any of the myths 
of Greek and Roman fable, nor upon the equally 
imaginary achievements of mediaeval feudalism. They 
will trace them to the triumphs of honorable and 
intelligent men over the forces of nature, to the 
devolving upon natural agencies the exhausting toil 
that had previously been performed by human hands. 
One of the twelve labors of Hercules, which has gained 
immortal renown, was the turning of the streams of 
Alpheus and Peneus from their channels to cleanse 
the stables of Augeas. What shall we then say of 
our modern Heraclidaa, who have turned our rivers 
and rivulets from their natural channels, where from 
the morning of creation they had flowed in idle splen- 



84 ADDRESS. 

dor or thundered in useless magnificence, to wake the 
music that attends the march of our great civilization, 
by mingling in sweet accord the roar of the waterfall 
with the click of the shuttle and the hum of the spin- 
dle ; who have entered the secret places of the Most 
Hio-h, not, like Prometheus, to steal the fire of heaven, 
but in filial confidence to take it Avith our Father's 
approval and scatter its blessings to all the children 
of his care ; who have disarmed the lightnings of their 
terrors, and made them the readiest servants of man- 
kind ; who have evoked from water, as liquid or vapor, 
a productive force equal to that of the entire popula- 
tion of the globe ; * who have brought to the humblest 
cottage comforts and even luxuries which a century 
since were unknown in the palaces of kings ? These, 
these are the true conditores imperiormn, — they who 
have lived and toiled, not for a family, a clan, a party, 
or a nation ; not the Tudors nor Plantagenets, the 
Warwicks nor Wolseys ; not Guelphs nor Ghibellines, 
not Hapsburgs nor Bourbons ; not those who have set 
up thrones or founded dynasties ; but those who have 
extended the dominion of man farther into the great 
domain of Nature, and taught the humblest peasant- 
boy to "bind the sweet influences of Pleiades" and 
wield the forces that " guide Arcturus with his sons." 

Nor is it merely in ministering to the physical wants 
of mankind that these pioneer manufacturers have 

* It has been estimated that the amount of labor performed by the aid of 
machinery in England alone is equal to that of between three and four 
hundred millions of men by direct labor. If to this be added the labor 
performed by machinery on the Continent and in America, there can be no 
doubt that the sum total will be equal to that of one thousand millions of 
men,' or the entire population of the globe. — Buckland's Geology, Vol. I. 
p. 494 ; Ruggles's Address to the Alumni of Yale College. 



ADDRESS. 85 

earned their claims to our remembrance and gratitude. 
No men in this country have done more to promote 
the higher culture, — the improvement of the mind 
and the heart. The school-house and the church have 
been the constant attendants of the cotton-mill. The 
schools of Greene ville (thanks to Mr. William H. Coit 
and his coadjutors) were pronounced, years ago, by the 
highest authority, the best of their grade in the State. 
Nor have they forfeited this honorable distinction ; 
others may have come into line, but they have not 
been distanced in the race for excellence. The greater 
portion of the funds of the Free Academy were earned 
upon the two streams that flow upon either side of it. 
The eponyms of our manufacturing cities and villages 
are to a great extent the same as those of our acade- 
mic and university halls. The family name which is 
borne by the metropolitan city of the New-England 
arts is the same that is borne by the Lowell Institute, 
the largest and noblest charity that the City of the 
Puritans can boast. When in the world's history has it 
fallen to the lot of father and son to share more worthily 
in honors more heartily bestowed ? * The father has 

* Francis C. Lowell has claims upon the grateful remembrance of his 
countrymen, which have been but partially recognized. Though born to 
affluence, and encountering all the obstacles that affluence presents to use- 
fulness, he nevertheless originated and perfected inventions and improve- 
ments which have left their impress upon the age. He appears to have pos- 
sessed the highest order of mathematical talent united with the rare power 
of directing it to the most successful practical results. Though not a pro- 
fessed politician, his clear insight in industrial and commercial affairs gave 
him an easy ascendency over the minds of such men as William Lowndes 
and John C. Calhoun ; and, as has been mentioned on a preceding pao-e, 
he induced these statesmen to inaugurate the "minimum duty," which lay at 
the foundation of the American protective system. He was, however, no 
blind advocate for protection, but appears to have been opposed to a tariff 



86 ADDRESS. 

given to his country one of the most effective machines 
that minister to human comfort, and started his coun- 
trymen in a new career of industrial and civilized life. 
The son, impelled by his interest in all that pertains to 
human welfare to visit every region of the globe and 
every condition of human society, finds himself arrested 
by disease on the banks of the Nile ; and there, amid 
the crumbling monuments of Egyptian grandeur, sur- 
rounded by pyramids, catacombs, temples, and sphinxes, 
impressed, as it would seem, with the utter failure of all 
material forms to gain that immortality which these 
cyclopean masses were reared to secure, he seats him- 
self upon the top of a palace of the Pharaohs, with the 
gloomy magnificence of Karnak and Luxor in full view, 
to found in his native city, by the royal gift of two 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars, an institution whose 
home should not be found in piles of gorgeous architect- 
ure,* but in the minds and hearts of men, to diffuse 

of high duties. It was at the cotton mill of the Boston Company, under 
his direction at Waltham, Massachusetts, that all the operations for convert- 
ing the raw material into salable goods were first performed under the 
same roof. Mr. Calhoun visited this mill in 1818, and apparently derived 
great satisfaction from witnessing its operations. 

It is also to Mr. Lowell that we are indebted, more than to any other man, 
for the great moral superiority of our manufacturing cities and villages over 
those of the Old World. He was deeply impressed with the degraded con- 
dition of the manufacturing population of England, and wisely determined 
to guard against similar abuses in this country. 

* The Lowell Institute, established by the munificence of John Lowell, 
Jr., is sacredly guarded, by a stipulation in the will of its founder, against 
the architectural abuses which have ruined the prospects of so many ample 
charities. I cannot resist the temptation to quote the remarks of Sir Charles 
Lyell upon Mr. Lowell's bequest, and upon the general subject of architect- 
ure in connection with educational charities. 

" Mr. John Lowell, a native of Massachusetts, after having carefully stud- 
ied the educational establishments of his own country, visited London in 
1833, and having sojourned there some months, paying a visit to the Univer- 



ADDRESS. 87 

through the world and down the ages the arts of an 
enlightened philosophy and the principles of a Chris- 
tian morality. 

sity of Cambridge and other places, he pursued his travels in the hope of 
exploring India and China. On his way he passed through Egypt, where, 
being attacked, while engaged in making a collection of antiquities, by an 
intermittent fever, of which he soon afterwards died, he drew up his last will 
in 1835, amidst the ruins of Thebes, leaving half of his noble fortune for 

the foundation of a literary institute in his native city When it is 

stated that the fees of the Lowell Institute at Boston are on a scale more 
than three times higher than the remuneration awarded to the best literary 
and scientific lecturers in London, it will at first be thought hopeless to 
endeavor to carry similar plans into execution in other large cities, whether 
at home or in the United States. In reality, however, the sum bequeathed 
by Mr. Lowell for his foundation, though munificent, was by no means enor- 
mous, not much exceeding 70,000Z., which, according to the usual fate await- 
ing donations for educational objects, would have been all swallowed up in 
the erection of costly buildings, after which the learned would be invited to 
share the scanty leavings of the ' Committee of Taste ' and the merciless 

architect, — 

' reliquias Danaum atque immitis Achillei.' 

But in the present case the testator provided in his will that not a single 
dollar should be spent in brick and mortar, in consequence of which pro- 
viso a spacious room was at once hired, and the intentions of the donor 
carried immediately into effect, without a year's delay. 

" If there be any who imagine that a donation might be so splendid as to 
render an anti-building clause superfluous, let them remember the history 
of the Girard bequest in Philadelphia. Half a million sterling, with the 
express desire of the testator that the expenditure on architectural ornament 
should be moderate ! Yet this vast sum is so nearly consumed that it is 
doubtful whether the remaining funds will suffice for the completion of the 
palace, — splendid, indeed, but extremely ill-fitted for a school-house ! It is 
evident that when a passion so strong as that for building is to be resisted, 
total abstinence alone, as in the case of spirituous liquors, will prove an 
adequate safeguard. In the ' old country,' the same fatal propensity has 
stood in the way of all the most spirited efforts of modern times to establish 
and endow new institutions for the diffusion of knowledge. It is well known 
that the sum expended on the purchase of the ground, and in the erection 
of that part of University College, London, the exterior of which is nearly 
complete, exceeded 100,00(M., one third of which was spent on the portico 
and dome, or the purely ornamental, the rooms under the dome having 
remained useless, and not even fitted up at the expiration of fifteen years. 



88 ADDRESS. 

In the society of these honored names, the Lowells, 
the Lawrences, the Appletons, and the Jacksons, — 

When the professor of chemistry inquired for the chimney of his laboratory, 
he was informed that there was none ; and, to remove the defect, a flue was 
run up which encroached on a handsome staircase, and destroyed the sym- 
metry of the architect's design. Still greater was the dismay of the anatomical 
professor on learning that his lecture-room was to conform to the classical 
model of an ancient theatre designed for the recitation of Greek plays. Sir 
Charles Bell remarked that an anatomical theatre, to be perfect, should 
approach as nearly as possible to the shape of a well, that every student 
nii"ht look down and see distinctly the subject under demonstration. At a 
considerable cost the room was altered so as to serve the ends for which it 
was wanted. The liberal sums contributed by the public for the foundation 
of a rival college were expended in like manner long before the academical 
body came into existence. When the professor of chemistry at King's Col- 
lege asked for his laboratory, he was told that it had been entirely forgotten 
in the plan, but that he might take the kitchen on the floor below, and by 
ingenious machinery carry up his apparatus for illustrating experiments, 
through a trap-door, into an upper story, where his lecture-room was placed. 

" Still, these collegiate buildings, in Support of which the public came for- 
ward so liberally, were left, like the Girard College, half finished ; whereas, 
if the same funds had been devoted to the securing of teachers of high 
acquirements, station, character, and celebrity, and if rooms of moderate 
dimensions had been at first hired, while the classes of pupils remained 
small, a generation would not have been lost, the new institutions would 
have risen more rapidly to that high rank which they are one day destined 
to attain, and testamentary bequests would have flowed in more copiously 
for buildings well adapted to the known and ascertained wants of the estab- 
lishment. None would then grudge the fluted column, the swelling dome, 
and the stately portico ; and literature and science would continue to be the 
patrons of architecture, without being its victims. 

" Prescott, in his admirable work on the Conquest of Mexico, remarks, when 
discussing the extent of the ancient Aztec civilization, that the progress 
made by the Mexicans in astronomy, and especially the fact of their having 
a general board of public education and the fine arts, proves more in favor 
of their advancement than the noble architectural monuments which they 
and their kindred tribes erected. ' Architecture,' he observes, ' is a sensual 
gratification, and addresses itself to the eye; it is the form in which the 
resources of a semi-civilized people are most likely to be lavished.' 

" It has already appeared how admirably Mr. Lowell appreciated the exact 
point of semi-civilization which the Anglo-Saxon race had then attained on 
both sides of the Atlantic." — Lyell's Travels. 



ADDRESS. 89 

names with which he was familiar in his childhood, 
that he heard and lisped at the paternal fireside, that 
he met in his daily walks, in the public meeting, in 
the academic shade, in the social circle, in the marts 
of trade, and in the solemn assembly, — we leave the 
name of our departed friend ; and in their communion 
and fellowship, among the spirits of just men made 
perfect in heaven, we leave the spirit of William Par- 
kinson Greene. 

Alumni of the Free Academy, you have done your 
part towards perpetuating the memory of one of the 
most eminent of the founders of your Alma Mater. 
Having shared in the advantages resulting from his 
beneficence, you have resolved to transmit the remem- 
brance of his virtues. The first recipients of his princely 
bounty and the witnesses of his daily life, you have 
determined, so far as your action can secure it, to pass 
down to those who shall come after you the moral 
legacy which he has left to this academic brotherhood 
and sisterhood. It is a filial, pious duty thus to en- 
shrine the character of the man in whose fortune you 
have been permitted so generously to share. Let it be 
a matter of pride with you that the fortune and the 
character of your benefactor can blend so sweetly in 
your memories ; that the former was the honest out- 
growth of the latter. Let his bright example serve as 
a stimulus to your own lives. Eemember the heroic 
virtue which impelled him early to choose a life of toil 
and usefulness instead of one of ease and pleasure. 

Inheriting a princely patrimony, which was largely 
12 



90 ADDRESS. 

increased by marriage, he might have passed a life 
of elegant leisure, secure from danger and fearless of 
reproach ; he might have been content 

" To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 
Or with the tangles of Nea;ra's hair ; " 

to live unknown and die unlamented. But the choice 
of Solomon was his ; or rather, like the great Apostle, a 
necessity was laid upon him, a woe threatened him, if 
he did not devote life and fortune to the interests of 
his race and the service of his Maker. And when that 
fortune was scattered, he bated not a jot of heart or 
hope, but steered right onward to the accumulation of 
another ; and, like the patriarch of Uz, whose char- 
acter he so much admired, he received as the reward 
of his probity and enterprise greater wealth than he 
had at the beginning. 

Be careful to remember that in his devotion to busi- 
ness he sacrificed not the higher elements of his char- 
acter. The man was not lost in the manufacturer. Amid 
all the complications, anxieties, vexations, reverses, and 
successes of business, there was the steady culture and 
the luxuriant growth of the intellect and the heart. 
His intercourse with men brought him nearer to his 
God. His care for material interests only taught him 
the vast superiority of the moral and spiritual. 

These are deeds and virtues which eminently befit 
the present period of your lives. It is true that he 
would have been the last to require or expect this 
service at your hands ; and for that very reason it is 
the more incumbent on you to render it. He had 
fully conquered the last infirmity of noble minds. It 



ADDRESS. 91 

was something more than a desire of vulgar fame, or 
fame of any kind, that raised his spirit 

" To scorn delights and live laborious days." 

Virtue with him was its own exceeding great reward. 

Of the numberless throngs which our great English 
poet has brought to his temple of Fame as worship- 
pers of the goddess and suppliants for her favors, he 
belongs in the smallest and the choicest class. 

" Then came the smallest tribe I yet had seen ; 
Plain was their dress, and modest was their mien. 
' Great idol of mankind ! we neither claim 
The praise of merit, nor aspire to fame. 
'T is all we beg thee, to conceal from sight 
Those acts of goodness which themselves requite. 
Oh let us still the secret joy partake, 
To follow virtue even for virtue's sake.' 

" ' And live there men who slight immortal Fame ? 
Who then with incense shall adore our name ? 
But, mortals ! know, 't is still our greatest pride 
To blaze those virtues which the good would hide. 
Rise, Muses, rise ! add all your tuneful breath ; 
These must not sleep in darkness and in death.' 
She said : in air the trembling music floats, 
And on the winds triumphant swell the notes ; 
So soft, though high, so loud, and yet so clear, 
Even listening angels leaned from heaven to hear ; 
To farthest shores the ambrosial spirit flies, 
Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies." 



APPENDIX. 



NOTE A. 

Gardiner Greene, of Boston, was a descendant, in the fourth 
generation, of John Greene, who sailed from Southampton in 
April, 1635, in the ship " James," of London, William Cooper, 
master, and arrived at Boston on the 3d of June. He brought 
with him his wife and five children, — John, Peter, James, 
Thomas, and Mary. He removed to Rhode Island in the next 
company after Roger Williams, and was an associate with him 
in the Providence purchase of 1638. He became proprietor of 
a tract of land on Providence River, and south of the Pawtuxet, 
in 1642. He was also one of the original purchasers of Shaw- 
homet, 1642-3. His wife died in 1643, in consequence of 
hardships suffered when Warwick (then Shawhomet) was at- 
tacked by a troop of horse. In 1644 he returned to England 
on business relative to Narragansett, and, while in England, 
married his second wife, Alice Daniels. He died at Warwick 
about 1659, and was buried at Conanicut. 

His descendants occupy a most honorable place in Rhode 
Island history. In all the arts of peace and war they have 
rendered services to their State and country which will be 
recorded so long as Rhode Island or American history shall 
continue to be written. The founder of this noble gens was 
himself a magistrate, clerk of the council, and one of the prin- 
cipal inhabitants of the colony. He appears to have been an 
earnest and able associate with that great Christian statesman, 
the protege of Sir Edward Coke, the relative, as some maintain, 



94 APPENDIX. 

of Oliver Cromwell, and, as all agree, the intimate friend, the 
teacher, and the pupil of John Milton, who first enunciated dis- 
tinctly to the world the true doctrine of soul-liberty, and made 
it the foundation of a Christian State ; who was respected as a 
scholar in the halls of the English universities, as well as revered 
and beloved in the wigwams of Narragansett savages. 

The farm on which John Greene was buried is still in the 
possession of one of his descendants of the same name. 

The line of descent from John Greene is through Thomas 
(born in England, 1631 ; died at Warwick, June 5, 1717); 
Nathaniel (born April 10, 1679; removed to Boston; made 
his will August 6, and died August 8, 1714 ; mentions his land 
in Warwick given him by his father, Thomas Greene ; also land 
which was granted to him near "Grinnage " [Greenwich?]) ; 
Benjamin (born at Boston, January 12, 1712 ; died 1776) ; 
to Gardiner Greene, born September, 1753 ; died Decem- 
ber 19, 1832. 

Gardiner Greene was thrice married. 

1. Ann Beading. 

2. Elizabeth Hubbard, born March 23, 1760 ; married, 
November 28, 1788, in Boston ; died September 7, 1797, in 
Boston. Their children were: Mary Ann, born April 19, 
1790 ; married at Boston, June 8, 1815, to Samuel Hubbard ; 
died July 10, 1827. They had five children. Gardiner, born 
January, 1792 ; died 1797. Benjamin Daniel, born at Deme- 
rara, December 29, 1793 ; married, 1826, Margaret M. Quincy ; 
died October 14, 1862 ; no issue. William Parkinson, born 
September 7, 1795 ; married, July 14, 1819, Augusta Elizabeth 
Borland ; died June 18, 1864. They had eight children. 

3. Elizabeth Clarke Copley,* born in Boston, Novem- 
ber 20, 1770 ; married, July 3, 1800, in London. Their chil- 

* Miss Elizabeth Clarke Copley was the daughter of the great portrait 
and historical painter, John Singleton Copley, and sister of the celebrated 
Lord Lyndhurst. The family is remarkable for longevity, as well as talent. 
Lord Lyndhurst lived to the age of ninety, and his sister, Mrs. Greene, sur- 
vives him at the age of ninety-five. 



APPENDIX. 95 

dren were : Gardiner, born April 21, 1802 ; died February 
20, 1810. Elizabeth Hubbard, born March 20, 1804 ; died 
December 12, 1854. She married, December 27, 1826, Henry 
Timmins. They had five children. Susanna, born October 29, 
1805 ; married, September 5, 1828, to Samuel Hammond ; 
died March 22, 1844. They had two children. Sarah, born 
August 15, 1807 ; died at Paris, February 26, 1863. John Sin- 
gleton Copley, born November 27, 1810 ; married, June 15, 
1836, Elizabeth P. Hubbard. They had two children ; no 
issue living. Married, November 5, 1844, Mary Ann Apple- 
ton. They had two children. Married, November 2, 1858, 
Belle W. McCulloch. They have two children. Martha Bab- 
cock, born November 15, 1812 ; married, October 15, 1832, 
Charles Amory. They had four children. Mary Copley, born 
July 17, 1817 ; married, August, 1837, to James Sullivan 
Amory. They had twelve children. 

The residence of Mr. Gardiner Greene in Boston was on 
Tremont, near the head of Court Street. The site of his family 
mansion and grounds, which extended to Somerset Street, is 
now occupied by the rooms of the American Board of Commis- 
sion for Foreign Missions, and Pemberton Square. 

For most of the above facts I am indebted to the politeness 
of the Rev. J. S. C. Greene, of Brookline, Massachusetts. 
Further information of interest respecting John Greene may 
be gathered from Arnold's " History of the State of Rhode Isl- 
and," Palfrey's " History of New England," Savage's " Genea- 
logical Dictionary," and the lives of Roger Williams by James 
D. Knowles and William Gammell. See also " New England 
Historical and Genealogical Register," Vol. IV. p. 75. 



NOTE B. 



The village of Greeneville, now comprising a population of 
about three thousand souls, owes its existence to the various 
manufacturing operations which have arisen under the patronage 



96 APPENDIX. 

of the Norwich Water-power Company. This Company- 
was chartered in 1829 under the following 

ACT OF INCORPORATION. 

At a General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, Jwlden at Hartford, 

in said State, on the first Wednesday of May, in the year of our Lord 

one thousand eight hundred and twenty-nine ; 

Upon the memorial of James Lanman and others, of Norwich, in 
the county of New London, praying for an Act of Incorporation, as 
per memorial on file, dated May 2, 1829 ; 

Resolved by this Assembly, That the said James Lanman, Calvin 
Goddard, George L. Perkins, William P. Greene, Henry Thomas, 
Joseph Perkins, William C. Gilman, Edward Whiting, Amos H. Hub- 
bard, Russell Hubbard, Jedediah Huntington, Elisha H. Mansfield, 
John Lathrop, Erastus Coit, Gushing Eells, Dixwell Lathrop, Jr., 
Frank T. Lathrop, Erastus Davison, Arthur F. Gilman, James L. 
Ripley, Alpheus Kingsley, George O. Goodwin, Daniel L. Coit, Ralph 
Farnsworth, William D. Ripley, and Benjamin D. Greene, with all 
others who are, or shall hereafter become associated with them, be, 
and they hereby are, with their successors and assigns, made and estab- 
lished a body politic and corporate by the name of the Norwich 
Water-power Company, for the purpose of purchasing and hold- 
ing upon and near the Shetucket and Quinebaug Rivers, and preparing 
for use the water of said rivers, for manufacturing and other purposes? 
by the erection of dams and other necessary works, and of holding, 
letting, leasing, selling, and disposing of the use of such water-power 
in the most advantageous manner ; and by that name they, and their 
successors and assigns, shall be, and hereby are authorized and em- 
powered to purchase, take, hold, occupy, possess, and enjoy, to them 
and their successors, any goods, chattels, and effects of whatever kind 
they may be, the better to enable them to carry on such business to 
advantage ; also, to purchase, take, hold, occupy, possess, and enjoy 
any such tenements, lands, hereditaments, in the towns of Norwich, 
Preston, and Lisbon, as shall be necessary for the views and purposes 
of said Company, and such other lands, tenements, hereditaments, as 
shall be taken in payment of, or as security for, debts due the said 
Company ; and also to take a lease or leases of any such lands, tene- 
ments, or hereditaments, for a term of years, aud the same to let, lease, 



APPENDIX. 97 

sell, and dispose of, at pleasure ; also, to sue and be sued, plead and 
be impleaded, defend and be defended, answer and be answered 
unto, in any court of record, or elsewhere ; and said Company may 
have and use a common seal, and may alter the same at their 
pleasure. 

Resolved, further, That the Capital Stock of said Company shall not 
exceed forty thousand dollars ; and that a share of said stock shall 
be five hundred dollars, and shall be deemed and considered personal 
estate, and be transferable only on the books of said Company, in such 
forms as the Directors of said Company may prescribe. And the 
said Company shall, at all times, have a lien upon all the stock or 
property of the members of said Company, invested therein, for all 
debts due from them to said Company ; and said Company may go 
into operation immediately. 

Resolved, further, That the stock, property, and affairs of the said 
Company shall be managed by not less than five, nor more than seven, 
Directors, who shall hold their offices for one year ; which Directors 
shall be stockholders, and citizens of the United States, and a ma- 
jority of them citizens of this State, and shall annually be elected at 
such time and place as the regulations of said Company shall prescribe. 
A majority of the Directors shall, on all occasions, when assembled 
according to the By-laws of the said Company, form a quorum for the 
transaction of business ; and the majority of stockholders present at 
any legal meeting shall be capable of transacting the business of that 
meeting, each share entitling the owner thereof to one vote ; and the 
first meeting of said Company shall be called by James Lanman, 
Calvin Goddard, and William P. Greene, or either two of them, by 
giving public notice thereof in one of the newspapers printed in the 
town of Norwich. 

Resolved, further, That the Directors for the time being, or a major 
part of them, shall have power to fill any vacancy which may happen 
in their Board, by death, resignation, or otherwise, for the then current 
year ; and to appoint and employ, from time to time, a Secretary, 
Treasurer, and such other officers, mechanics, and laborers as they 
may think proper for the transaction of the business of the said Com- 
pany ; and also to make and establish such By-laws, Rules, and Regu- 
lations as they shall think expedient for the better management of the 
concerns of said Company, and the same to alter and repeal, — Pro- 
13 



98 APPENDIX. 

vided, always, That such By-laws, Kules, and Regulations shall not be 
inconsistent with the laws of this State or the United States ; and 
such Directors may, at their discretion, from time to time, declare a 
dividend or dividends on each share, which shall be paid by the 
Treasurer of said Company. 

Resolved, further, That if it shall so happen that an election of Direc- 
tors shall not take place in any year at the annual meeting of the said 
Company, the Company, for that reason, shall not be dissolved ; but 
such election may be held thereafter, on any convenient day within 
one year, to be fixed upon by the Directors, they previously giving 
public notice thereof. 

Resolved, further, That the books of said Company containing their 
accounts shall, at all reasonable times, be open for the inspection of 
any of the stockholders of said Company ; and as often as once in 
each year a statement of the accounts of said Company shall be made 
by order of the Directors. 

Resolved, further, That the Directors may call in the subscriptions 
to the Capital Stock by instalments, in such proportions and at such 
times and places as they may think proper, giving notice thereof in a 
public newspaper printed at Norwich thirty days before the time of 
payment, and such other notice as the By-laws and Regulations of 
the said Company shall prescribe ; and in case any stockholder shall 
neglect or refuse payment of such instalment or instalments, for the 
term of sixty days after the same shall become due and payable, and 
after he, she, or they have been notified thereof, such negligent stock- 
holder or stockholders shall forfeit to said Company all his, her, or 
their previous instalments, together with all his, her, or their rights or 
interests whatever in said stock. 

Resolved, further, That for the debts which may at any time be due 
from said Company, the stockholders shall not be responsible in their 
private capacity, but the property and estate of the said Company 
only. 

Provided, That nothing contained in this act shall be construed to 
authorize or empower the said Company to use their funds for any 
banking transactions ; and also Provided, That this grant shall be sub- 
ject to be altered, amended, or repealed at the pleasure of the Gen- 
eral Assembly. 

Provided, further, That no dividend shall ever be made among the 



APPENDIX. 99 

several stockholders, unless the remaining property of said Company 
shall be equal in value to at least twice the amount of debts then due 
from said Company. 

A true copy of record, examined and certified under the seal of the 
State by THOMAS DAY, 

Secretary. 

At a General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, holden at New 
Haven, in said State, on the first Wednesday of May, in the year of 
our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two ; 

Upon the petition of William P. Greene, in behalf of the Norwich 
Water-power Company, praying for an amendment of their charter 
so far as to authorize the increase of their Capital Stock from forty 
thousand to eighty thousand dollars as per petition on file ; 

Resolved by this Assembly, That the said Company be, and they are 
hereby, authorized to increase the Capital Stock of said Company to 
an amount not exceeding the sum of eighty thousand dollars, and that 
said additional Capital Stock may be distributed in such manner as 
said Company shall direct. 

A true copy of record, examined by THOMAS DAY, 

Secretary. 

Under the foregoing Act of Incorporation, operations were 
commenced upon the Shetucket in June, 1829. The work was 
under the direction of James F. Baldwin as chief, and W. T. 
Prentice as assistant engineer. Benjamin Durfey, the superin- 
tendent of labor, still lives to exercise, as the agent of the Wa- 
ter-power Company, a supervision of the work of which he saw 
the commencement. The dam and canal were completed in 

1830, and the erection of mills for various branches of industry 
was begun in 1831. The following is believed to be a tolerably 
accurate list of the various enterprises which have from time to 
time sprung up on this foundation. 

The first building on the canal was commenced in August, 

1831. It was built by the Water-power Company for Noah 
Davis, and used by him for some years as a manufactory for 
bone buttons. Tweedy and Barrows carried on for a time the 

L.ofC. 



100 APPENDIX. 

manufacture of German-silver in this building. It was burnt 
in May, 1837, and the foundations may still be seen near the 
waste weir. 

The Greeneville Manufacturing Company, under the direc- 
tion of William H. Coit and James L. Ripley, began in Sep- 
tember, 1831, the erection of a mill for the manufacture of 
flannel, which, after being used for this purpose by the Greene- 
ville Company for some time, passed into the hands of William 
F. Clark, who continued the same business for some years. 
From Mr. Clark the factory passed to the possession of Norton 
& Converse, and from them to Norton Brothers. During the 
present year, 1865, it has been partially burned, and has passed 
into the hands of Isaac Johnson, who carries on there the 
manufacture of wicking, twine, carpet yarns, and fine yarns. 

In 1835, a wooden building was erected by the Water-power 
Company for Charles Spalding, which he occupied for some 
years as a paper-mill. William A. Buckingham manufactured 
carpet yarns here for a time. In 1853, Allen Cameron com- 
menced here the manufacture of linen goods, and continued 
the business for about two years, when the building was again 
devoted to carpet yarns, until, in 1862, it was appropriated to 
the manufacture of shoddy goods by T. N. Dickenson, who now 
occupies it. 

The Water-power Company in 1853 erected a brick building 
for the Greeneville Worsted Company, under the direction of 
Allen Cameron. Cameron was succeeded in 1858 by J. W. 
Dimick, and in 1861 the mill was purchased and enlarged by 
A. H. Hubbard & Company, who transferred their business 
from the Falls to Greeneville. 

In 1839, a wooden grist-mill was built for Spalding & Alex- 
ander, (Jedediah Spalding and James D. Alexander,) which has 
passed through the hands of Abner C. Adams, N. T. Adams, 
James D. Mowry, and Robinson Northup, to the present pro- 
prietors, Samuel Mowry and Benjamin Durfey. 

The Thames Company, in 1831-32, erected a large brick 
cotton-mill, the Quinebaug Mill, so called, which passed into the 



APPENDIX. 101 

hands of the present proprietors, the Shetncket Company, in 
1838, was burned May 26, 1842, rebuilt the following year, 
and has since been greatly enlarged. 

In 1831, the Water-power Company built, for Kennedy & 
Tillinghast, a cotton-mill, which was occupied by them nearly 
twenty years. It was run for a year by Zebulon Whipple, and 
in 1853 passed into the hands of the present proprietor, Samuel 
Mowry, who uses it as a machine-shop and wooden-type manu- 
factory. 

In 1840, a bleachery was erected by the Water-power Com- 
pany for Moses Pierce. It was burnt in November, 1859, im- 
mediately rebuilt, and is still occupied by Mr. Pierce. 

In 1832, the Water-power Company built a paper-mill for 
David Smith, who organized the Chelsea Manufacturing Com- 
pany. Mr. Smith eventually became the principal proprietor 
of the Company, but retired from the business in 1859. The 
Chelsea Company ceased to exist in 1865, and the mill is now 
run by Campbell, Hall & Company, of New York. This mill 
at one time w r as said to be the largest in the world. 

A wooden building was erected in 1832 by the Water-power 
Company, which was occupied as a sash and blind factory by 
Hooker & Rice (J. W. Hooker and Edmund Rice). This 
was burned after a few years' occupancy, (May, 1837,) and was 
replaced by a paper-mill, which was conducted by Culver & 
Mickle. This mill also was burned, and has not been rebuilt. 
In the basement of this sash and blind factory, Oliver Allen 
manufactured woollen-machinery, and also commenced the man- 
ufacture of the " Bomb Lance," of which he was the inventor. 

In 1850, William A. Buckingham erected the Dye Works, 
so called, where he carried on the business of dyeing for three 
years. In 1853, James Houston, who had superintended the 
business from the commencement, became proprietor, and still 
remains so. 

The moral and religious wants of Greeneville were early 
subjects of attention with the proprietors of the village. 



102 APPENDIX. 

" William P. Greene, the originator of the "Water-power 
Company, and his coadjutant, William C. Gilman," (I quote 
from the history of the Greeneville Congregational Church,) 
" were the prominent and efficient directors in all its movements. 
The moral and religious welfare of the community which was to 
be gathered upon their premises, were subjects of deep interest 
to them ; and from the beginning this church and society have 
found them reliable friends and patrons. The Company neither 
furnished intoxicating liquors, nor allowed the use of them as 
a beverage on their works ; and the conditions for the sale of 
their lands, with the rules for the conduct of all parties inter- 
ested, are evidence of a wise forecast." 

On the first of January, 1833, the Greeneville Congre- 
gational ChurCh was constituted the Fourth Congregational 
Church of Norwich. The following is the succession of pas- 
tors : — 

Rev. John Storrs, from March, 1834, to April, 1835. 
" Spencer F. Beard supplied the pulpit for about two 

years. 
" Stephen Crosby, 1837. Died June, 1838. 
" A. L. Whitman, December, 1838, to March, 1816. 
" C. P. Bush, December, 1846, to January, 1856. 
" Robert P. Stanton, June, 1856, to the present time. 
The meeting-house was begun in the autumn of 1834, and 
completed in the spring following, when it was dedicated by 
Dr. Hawes, of Hartford. 

The Greeneville Baptist Church was constituted May 
14, 1845. 

Rev. D. B. Cheney was pastor from May 14, 1845, to May 
5, 1847. 
" Lawson Mussey, May 5, 1847, to Dec. 5, 1852. 
" Niles Whiting, Dec. 5, 1852, to April 1, 1854. 
. " D. D. Lyon, April 1, 1854, to July 11, 1857. 
" O. W. Gates, July 11, 1857, to Oct. 1, 1860. 
" J. M. Phillips, Oct. 1, 1860, to Feb. 1, 1865. 
" William W. Ashley, Feb. 1, 1865, the present pastor. 



APPENDIX. 103 

The first meeting-house was huilt in 1846, and was burnt in 
February, 1854. The present house of worship was erected 
the same year. 

The first Methodist house of worship was built in 1837. 
The present house was erected in 1864. 

The Catholics organized their first society in 1844. The 
services of the church (St. Mary's) for seven years were con- 
ducted by priests from the College of the Holy Cross, Worces- 
ter, Mass. In August, 1851, the Rev. Daniel Kelly assumed 
the care of the society, and still discharges the duties of the 
office. The first church was a small structure, only thirty-two 
feet by fifty ; but it has been twice enlarged, and is now the 
most capacious in the city. 

The interests of education received early attention from the 
founders and original inhabitants of this village. The entire 
village was first constituted into one school district, but was 
subsequently divided into two. These two were again united, 
and the schools were graded. The first principal teacher under 
the graded system was Mr. J. D. Giddings, a gentleman who 
deserves honorable mention as an educator. He taught, after 
leaving Greeneville, with great success as principal of one of 
the schools in Providence, R. I., was the first principal of the 
Hartford High School, and has the honor of being the first to 
establish the New-England system of free schools in Charles- 
ton, S. C. He was in Charleston during the entire period of 
the recent war, as many a prisoner can testify, from the relief 
which he experienced at his hands. 

I regret that it is not in my power to give the succession of 
principal teachers from Mr. Giddings to the present time. I 
have been able to obtain their names only since 1856. They 
are as follows : — 

Carlos C. Kimball, August, 1856, to March, 1857. 

Nathan C. Pond, April, 1857, to April, 1859. 

John F. Peck, April, 1859, to November, 1860. 

Henry C. Davis, November, 1860, to July, 1862. 



104 APPENDIX. 

Joseph A. Kellogg, July, 1862, to July, 1863. 

James L. Johnson, July, 1863, to April, 1865. 

Amos F. Palmer, April, 1865, the present principal. 

It is but justice to say that the Greeneville schools have for a 
series of years maintained a uniform character for excellence in 
all the elements that go to constitute thorough and successful 
education. 

A good foundation for a village library was laid by William 
P. Greene some years since, in the hope that others would be 
interested in the enterprise, and carry it on ; but it remains as 
yet where Mr. Greene left it. 



NOTE C. 



Manufacturing operations at Norwich Falls date from the 
first settlement of the town. It was here that John Elderkin 
erected his grist-mill at some time previous to November 1, 
1661, if he fulfilled the terms of his contract of December 11, 
1660, which is the first recorded act in the town books of Nor- 
wich. The site of Elderkin's mill, if tradition be correct, was 
below the Falls, at a point nearly opposite Sachem's Rock, the 
water being brought around the Falls by a trough or conduit. 
There are, however, perhaps, some reasons for believing that 
Elderkin may have built his mill above the Falls, in the neigh- 
borhood of the old paper-mill. It is at this point that we find 
the next mention of any manufacturing operations. In written 
documents of 1745, mention is made of " Bingham's mill," or 
"Huntington's mill," which, from the connection, makes it 
quite certain that a mill had been erected at a very early period 
in the history of the town, a short distance below the railroad 
bridge, and immediately under the rocky bluff where the old 
paper-mill now stands. There are still in existence a " lease " 
and " covenant," bearing date July 15, 1745, between Caleb 
Norman and Hezekiah Huntington, by which instruments Nor- 



APPENDIX. 105 

man leases to Huntington, for the term of thirty-five years, 
" one acre of land more or less," in separate lots on both sides 
of the Yantic, above and below the present paper-mill bridge. 
In consideration of this lease from Norman, Huntington cove- 
nants with him to build a dam between the two above-mentioned 
parcels of land, and also across " the gutter or hollow that runs 
up to the ford-way over said river to Bingham's mill, otherwise 
called Huntington's mill, that stands on the said river." " And 
the said Caleb Norman, for himself, his heirs, executors, and 
administrators, doth hereby covenant, promise, and agree to and 
with the said Hezekiah Huntington, his heirs, executors, admin- 
istrators, and assigns, to procure at his own cost and charge a 
ditch to be digged,* and the same to be kept open and in good 
repair at all times during the said term of thirty-five years, that 
shall be sufficient to receive and draw off the water that shall 
be drawn through the gates at the dam in the said gutter, suffi- 
cient for the use of the said mills, at least six feet and three 
inches below a level from the top of a rock lying at the south- 
erly end of a ledge in the east side of the said gutter." The 
mills above referred to were a mill for the manufacture of lin- 
seed-oil, to be built by Huntington, and a fulling-mill, to be 
built by Norman. The dam referred to is the present dam 
immediately above the paper-mill bridge ; after having stood 
one hundred and twenty years, being once rebuilt, and serving 
four generations of men, this dam of Huntington and Norman's 
(an humble work compared with more recent structures) will, 
the present year, cease from the service of man, and the place 
that now knows it will know it no more forever. Huntington 
built his oil-mill, as we learn by tradition, immediately below 
the present bridge. Of the fulling-mill of Norman I get no 
information. The oil-mill was subsequently removed further 

* This ditch has now the appearance of a natural water-course, and forms 
thee asterly boundary of the island in the Yantic -which separates the two 
bridges immediately below the dam of Huntington and Norman. The bridges 
were built in 1771. The removal of the old dam will, of course, tend to 
restore the natural connection between the island and the main land. 
14 



106 APPENDIX. 

down the stream to the present site of Col. Converse's new 
brick mill. 

The property passed, in 1770, from Hezekiah Huntington to 
Joshua Huntington, son-in-law of Hezekiah, and from his heirs 
in 1823, to the late Joseph H. Strong, who continued the man- 
ufacture of linseed-oil, and built, in 1822, a woollen-mill on the 
site of the present factory of the Bacon Manufacturing Com- 
pany, which was burned in 1848, and replaced by the present 
structure in 1850. This new building was first occupied, in 
1852, by Charles A. Converse for the manufacture of bits 
and augurs ; and he continued this business there until 1863, 
when he turned his attention to the manufacture of arms in 
connection with the Bacon Manufacturing Company, who 
became lessees of a portion of the premises in 1859. This 
Company still continue the business. From Joseph H. Strong 
the property passed to his brother, the late Henry Strong, 
in 1839, and from his heirs to the present proprietor, Charles 
A. Converse, in 1853. During the war of 1812-15, John 
Sterry erected a small building, on the site now marked by 
what is termed the Silk-Dam, for the spinning of silk.* Dur- 
ing the present year, Col. Converse is building a new stone 
dam, which will greatly increase the value of the property. In 
1861, Col. Converse demolished the old oil-mill and grist-mill, 
and erected the present substantial and capacious building, in 
which he continues his grist-mill, but the greater portion of 
which is leased by J. Hunt Adams & Company for the cutting 
of corks by a machine which was devised by J. D. Crocker, 
of this city, and is believed to be by far the most effective of 
all that have been invented. 

Above the dam of Huntington and Norman there existed, 
as has been mentioned, near the site of the present unoccupied 
paper-mill, a mill called Huntington's or Bingham's mill ; but 

* The manufacture of silk had received some attention in Norwich at 
quite an early period. Dr. Stiles, writing in 1792, speaks of having the 
year previous seen a pair of silk stockings which were spun and woven in 
Norwich. 



appp:ndix. 107 

I have been able to obtain no further information concerning 
it. At this point, in 1771, Christopher Leffingwell erected the 
first paper-mill in Connecticut. At subsequent periods, a full- 
ing-mill, grist-mill, and chocolate-mill were carried on under 
the same roof with the paper-mill. In 1811, March 80, Russell 
Hubbard, Hezekiah F. Williams, and Thomas M. Huntington 
purchased of William Leffingwell, son of Christopher, the paper- 
mill property, with its appurtenances. In September, 1815, 
Thomas M. Huntington sold his share to Russell Hubbard, and 
in the same month and yeai', Joshua Huntington, as admin- 
istrator of Hezekiah F. Williams's estate, sold to Hubbard the 
remaining share of the property. On becoming sole proprietor 
of the estate, Russell Hubbard sold one half to Dwight Ripley, 
who, for a little more than one year, was associated with Hub- 
bard in the manufacture of paper. In December, 1816, Hub- 
bard became sole proprietor, and so continued until 1837, when 
he formed a partnership with his brother, Amos H. Hubbard, 
which will receive our notice when we speak of the establish- 
ments below the Falls. 

Passing now below the Falls, we find the first mills erected 
there to have been a grist-mill, saw-mill, and oil-mill, by Eli- 
jah Lathrop. In 1794, Andrew Huntington and Ebenezer 
Bushnell built a paper-mill on the site of the present stone 
building, until recently occupied by R. & A. H. Hubbard. 
The land was leased to them by Elijah Lathrop for the term of 
twenty years. Here they continued the manufacture of paper 
until May, 1818, when they sold the property to Amos Hallam 
Hubbard, who had already bought the land of John Lathrop, 
January 1, 1818, and who continued there in the same business 
until 1837, when the mill was burned. In the erection of the 
new mill, Amos H. Hubbard formed a partnership with his 
brother Russell, and the two mills above and below the Falls 
were carried on by this firm until the death of Russell Hub- 
bard in June, 1857. Amos H. Hubbard continued the paper 
business here until the spring of 1861, when he disposed of the 
entire property to William P. Greene, as the representative of 
the Falls Company, for $55,000. 



108 APPENDIX. 

Nathaniel Howland and John G. Baxter leased, June 1, 
1802, of Elijah and Simon Lathrop, for twenty years, the right 
to erect a building for the spinning and manufacturing of hemp, 
flax, wool, and cotton. This is generally known as the Duck 
Mill. Elijah and Simon Lathrop also leased to John Sterry 
and Epaphras Porter, May 27, 1806, the right for twenty years 
to erect a building and carry on the business of the " burnish- 
ing of paper," an art of which Sterry was the inventor. 

In March, 1809, Elijah and Simon Lathrop conveyed these 
two leases, together with the rights and titles to the property, 
to Calvin Goddard, who, in connection with William Williams 
and William Williams, Jr., formed a company under the title 
of William Williams, Jr., & Company, who continued the corn 
and oil mills, and enlarged their works by the addition of a flour 
mill. In 1813, the Duck Mill, which had been built by 
Howland & Baxter, was converted into a cotton-mill by the 
last-mentioned Company, and then conducted by John Gray 
as their agent. In 1816, one of the corn-mills was converted 
into a nail factory, (Norwich Iron & Nail Company,) under 
the direction of William C. Gilman, who now for the first time 
appears as a manufacturer in Norwich. The nail business thus 
commenced was owned by four equal proprietors, namely, Wil- 
liam C. Gilman, Lott & Seaman, Samuel T. Odiorne, and 
William Williams, Jr., & Company. 

In 1819 the cotton-mill was reorganized under the title of 
the Williams Cotton Factory, with John De Witt as agent ; 
and on his retirement, William C. Gilman became the agent, 
who was chiefly instrumental in first directing the attention of 
Boston capitalists to this city. In 1821, the entire property of 
the Williams Company was sold to Samuel Hubbard and others, 
of Boston, which led, in the year 1823, to the formation of 

THE THAMES MANUFACTURING COMPANY. 

This Company was incorporated by the legislature of Con- 
necticut, as above stated, in May, 1823. By the politeness of 
Samuel Mowry, Esq., I have been favored with access to all 



APPENDIX. 109 

the records of the stockholders and Directors from the com- 
mencement to the close of the concern. The first meeting of 
the stockholders, at which the act of incorporation was accepted, 
was held on the 18th of June, 1823. There were present at 
this meeting the following gentlemen, who were named in the 
charter as the first Board of Directors : Henry Hubbard, 
Benjamin D. Greene, William P. Greene, and William C. 
Gilman. John Hubbard and Samuel Hubbard appeared by 
attorney duly authorized. William P. Greene was appointed 
chairman pro tempore, and Arthur F. Gilman was appointed 
permanent clerk. At a meeting of the Directors on the 9th of 
July following, it was voted, — 

That we carry into effect our original plan ; that we erect a build- 
ing, wheel, &c., for a cotton-mill of a capacity of two thousand 
spindles ; that only one thousand spindles be put in in the first in- 
stance ; that the amount of our capital be considered one hundred 
thousand dollars ; that the amount of stock now subscribed being only 
seventy-five thousand dollars, the remaining twenty-five thousand be 
provided in one of the following modes : — 1st, by advances made by 
the several stockholders (excepting Henry Hubbard and William C. 
Gilman), in proportion to their original subscriptions ; 2d, by creating 
new shares and procuring new associates ; or 3d, by a loan taken up 
by the Company. 

Voted, That a rolling and slitting mill be immediately erected. 

Voted, That William P. Greene be associated with William C. 
Gilman, and that they be the agents of the Company ; and that the 
erecting of the rolling and slitting mill be entirely committed to 
them, and also the general business of the Company. 

On the 2d of March, 1824, it was voted that the agents erect 
a foundry, and carry the same immediately into operation, pro- 
vided that the expense shall not exceed four thousand dollars. 
On the 29th of December, 1824, the agents were directed to 
purchase the Bozrah establishment, which was effected at an 
expense of twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars. In Jan- 
uary, 1825, the Company voted to increase their capital stock 
to three hundred thousand dollars ; and the first dividend of ten 
per cent, was declared in October of the same year. 



110 APPENDIX. 

The business of the Company appears to have been conducted 
satisfactorily to its stockholders for several years. At a meeting 
of the Directors in Boston, March 10, 1828, the following let- 
ter was received : — 

To the President of the Tliames Manufacturing Company : 

Sir, — The object of my appointment as one of the agents of the 
Thames Company having been to exercise a general supervision in 
connection with their agent, William C. Gilman, during the erection 
of their works, and the same being now completed and in full opera- 
tion, I would take the liberty through you of tendering to the Board of 
Directors the resignation of my office as one of their agents. 
Very respectfully, 

Your obedient servant, 

William P. Greene. 
Norwich, March 5, 1828. 

To this letter, the Directors, under date of April 8, 1828, 
returned the following reply : — 

Willliam P. Greene, Esq., Norwich : 

Dear Sir, — The Directors of the Thames Manufacturing Com- 
pany, in communicating to you their vote accepting your resignation 
as one of their agents, are desirous of expressing their views and 
feelings on the subject of your agency. 

It had not been their wish or expectation that you should withdraw 
from the employment of the Company, and in consequence of it they 
recommitted the subject to you for your further deliberation and de- 
cision. On receiving your letter stating that you adhered to your first 
determination, they believed it to be their duty to act in immediate 
conformity to your wishes, and they accordingly accepted your resig- 
nation. 

It is a pleasure to them to say that in the discharge of your agency 
you have given very great and very general satisfaction. The distin- 
guished ability and integrity which have marked your conduct as an 
agent have been such as to entitle you to their warmest thanks, and 
they beg you to receive this communication as an expression of their 
approbation and confidence and friendship, and to be assured that the 
manner in which you have made known your intention to resign has 
added to the high respect they entertain for your character. 



APPENDIX. Ill 

Though not entitled to your further services, the Directors hope 
they may from time to time receive your counsel and advice as the 
situation of the Company may seem to require it. 

With their best wishes for your health and happiness, they are, in 
behalf of the Thames Manufacturing Company, 
Your friends and servants, 

Samuel Hubbard, 

John D. Williams, )■ Directors. 

John Bumstead, j 

It will be observed, by comparing dates, that by the resigna- 
tion of his agency for the Thames Company more time was 
obtained by Mr. Greene for the enterprise on the Shetucket. 
It was accordingly in the following year that the Water-power 
Company was organized, and its operations commenced. This 
made way for the still further extension of the works of the 
Thames Company. 

Immediately on the completion of the dam and canal on the 
Shetucket, the Thames Company turned their attention in this 
direction. After the subject had been carefully considered and 
reported on in previous meetings, it was voted unanimously at 
an adjournment of the annual meeting held on the 14th of Sep- 
tember, 1831, — 

That the Report of the committee [to whom the consideration of 
the subject had been referred] be accepted, and that the Directors, 
acting on the basis of the report, be hereby authorized, at their dis- 
cretion, to purchase a site and erect a mill on the Shetucket, and to 
effect any loans which may be necessary for the purpose ; but with the 
understanding that the Directors will make regular dividends when- 
ever the profits will admit of it, notwithstanding the expenditure for 
the new mill. 

At a meeting of the Directors on the following day, Sep- 
tember 15, 1831, it was voted that William P. Greene, Mr. 
Gilman, and Mr. Mowry be a committee to mature plans for 
the building of machinery for the mill contemplated to be erected 
on the Shetucket, agreeably to the vote of the stockholders ; 
and that the agent be authorized to carry said plans into effect 



112 APPENDIX. 

■with all convenient despatch after the mill privilege shall have 
heen secured. 

Voted, That Mr. Gilman be a committee to make a contract with 
the Norwich Water-power Company for a mill privilege of twelve 
thousand spindles, subject to the ratification of this Board. 

The ahove votes of the Company and Board of Directors 
were carried into immediate effect. 

The capital of the Company, now amounting to 8400,000, was 
mainly invested in personal and real property, but a small por- 
tion being left free for conducting the regular operations of the 
Company. It will be observed that the new mill on the She- 
tucket was erected, not by an increase of the capital stock, but 
by a loan of $100,000 recommended and authorized, but never 
completely effected. The consequences of this undue exten- 
sion soon began to be felt. In 1834 the condition of the Com- 
pany's affairs was referred to a special committee, (Messrs. 
William Worthington and Henry Gassett,) whose report pre- 
sents an elaborate and minute view of the situation of the Com- 
pany, and recommends that the authorized loan of $100,000 be 
at once effected to remove the large floating debt, and free the 
agent from the embarrassments involved in its management. 
But the stockholders appear to have been unwilling to make 
further investments in this direction. The records of the Com- 
pany and Board of Directors remind one of the remai-ks of the 
Hon. Nathan Appleton in his very timely pamphlet on the 
" Introduction of the Power-Loom and Origin of Lowell." 
" The chief trouble," he remarks, in speaking of the manage- 
ment of the Lowell companies at the same period, " is with 
those concerns which have attempted to get on with inadequate 
capital. The Lowell companies were all originally established 
on the principle that not more than two thirds of the capital 
should be invested in fixtures and machinery, leaving one third 
free to carry on the business. In some few instances this prin- 
ciple has been disadvantageous^ encroached upon, by increas- 
ing the original machinery without a proportionate increase of 



APPENDIX. 113 

capital. One thing is certain, manufactures cannot be carried 
on to any great extent in this country in any other manner 
than by joint-stock companies. A large capital is necessary to 
success. Individuals possessing sufficient capital will not give 
themselves up to this pursuit. It is contrary to the genius of 
the country." 

In the report of the same committee, Messrs. Worthington 
and Gassett, the following year, the same subject of an insuffi- 
cient capital and the difficulties connected with a large floating 
debt was urged upon the attention of the stockholders, but with 
no better success. Quite a different course from that suggested 
was resolved on. At an adjourned annual meeting held in 
Boston, October 16, 1835, it was 

Voted, That it is expedient to sell all the property of the Company 
except such as is connected with the establishment at the Quinebaug 
Mill [on the Shetucket]. 

In obedience to the preceding vote, the agent of the Com- 
pany was instructed, at a meeting of the Directors held October 
20, 1835, " to form plans and estimates, and endeavor to effect 
a sale of the Iron Works, the Thames Mill, and the Bozrah 
Mill, and with reference to finding associates in the city of New 
York." The prices fixed for the Thames and Bozrah mills 
were sixty-five and thirty-five thousand dollars respectively. 

In order to perfect the sale of the Thames Mill, it became 
necessary to organize a new concern, under the name of the 
Norwich and New York Manufacturing Company. In doing 
this the agent retained an interest of ten thousand dollars for 
the Thames Company. From the first of January, 1836, the 
Thames Company may be regarded as having commenced a 
new state of business. The Thames Mill having been sold, the 
Bozrah and Quinebaug mills were set down at a reduced value. 
At the annual meeting, September 22, 1836, the affairs of the 
Company were referred to a new committee, consisting of 
William, P. Greene, Edmund Monroe, and William C. Gilman. 
This committee submitted, through its chairman, the following 
15 



114 APPENDIX. 

REPORT. 

The Committee to whom was referred the present condition of the 
affairs of the Company, report : — That in their opinion its concerns 
cannot be conducted with any prospect of profitable results while the 
Company continues embarrassed with a large amount of debt ; and 
unless some remedy be applied, in process of time the result will be 
the failure of the Company. 

That if practicable to raise an additional capital of one hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars, effectual relief would be afforded ; but the 
Company possess no power of raising this amount, either by assess- 
ment or by the sale of additional shares, and it cannot, therefore, be 
accomplished unless by the general agreement of the stockholders to 
take this amount in proportion to the shares now held by them re- 
spectively ; and many of the stockholders are unwilling to make fur- 
ther advances. The only remaining alternatives which have accrued 
are, the sale of either a part or the whole of the property of the Com- 
pany. That the sale of the Bozrah Mill, even if it were effected at the 
price heretofore authorized, would afford but partial relief; that the 
sale of the property on the Shetucket [the Quinebaug Mill] would 
leave comparatively so small an amount of property, that, if it were 
decided to sell that establishment, the stockholders would very gen- 
erally prefer to sell the whole and close the concerns of the present 
Company ; that it is very obvious that a sale cannot be effected unless 
on such terms as would present strong inducement to invest. 

They therefore recommend that the concerns of the Thames Manu- 
facturing Company shall be brought to a close as soon as the same 
can conveniently be done, and that the whole real estate of the Com- 
pany shall be sold for the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, 
payable in three equal instalments at six, nine, and twelve months, 
with interest ; that, to effect this object, a committee be appointed to 
form a company to make the purchase, with a capital of one hundred 
and sixty thousand dollars, to be divided into shares of one hundred 
dollars each ; and that the stock in the said Company shall first be 
offered to the present proprietors, with the liberty of taking two shares 
for every share now owned by them respectively in the present Com- 
pany, and the several parties to have until the first day of November 
to make their elections. 

In compliance with the recommendations of this report, a 



APPENDIX. 115 

loan of one hundred thousand dollars from the stockholders to 
the Company was effected, mortgage upon the entire property 
being given as security. The relief expected from this measure, 
however, came too late. At a meeting of the Directors on the 
17th of May, 1837, it was announced that the Company and 
their treasurer, Mr. Gilman, had suspended payment. The 
equity of redemption of the Company was sold on the 31st of 
August, 1837, to William C. Gilman. 

The Thames Company having thus come to a close, the 
Quinebaug Mill passed into the hands of a new organization, 
the Shetucket Company, January 1, 1838, while the Nor- 
wich and New York Company, under the direction of Mr. 
Gilman, continued their business in the Thames Mill at the 
Falls for three or four years, when, on the failure of the Com- 
pany, the property passed through the hands of the Quinebaug 
Bank and Edmund Smith, to the control of the present Falls 
Company, October, 1843, with Benjamin D. Greene, Samuel 
Mowry,* Denison B. Tucker, and William P. Greene as pro- 
prietors. 

I should not forget to mention, that, in May, 1842, the Nor- 
wich and New York Company sold to Allen & Thurber (Ethan 

* Samuel Mowry deserves honorable mention as one of the early and 
successful mechanics and manufacturers of Norwich. Mr. Mowry is a 
native of Killingly, was educated as a machinist, and built some of the first 
cotton machinery that was made in Connecticut. In 1821 he became con- 
nected with the cotton-mill at Bozrah, and in 1823 united his fortunes with 
the Thames Company, was one of the most active and able of its friends 
and at the close of its concerns received from its Directors the most honora- 
ble testimony to his ability and fidelity. He was one of the original propri- 
etors in both the Falls and Shetucket Companies, and remained with them 
until 1853, when he established himself in his present position in the machine- 
shop at Greeneville. In connection with the general manufacture of ma- 
chinery, he also carries on, with William H. Page, the manufacture of wooden 
type. At the age of threescore years and ten, he is reaping the reward of 
a life of industry and integrity, and is able to review the progress of man- 
ufacturing industry in this region from its commencement, and feel that 
he has borne an honorable part in bringing it to its present state of perfec- 
tion and prosperity. 



116 APPENDIX. 

Allen and Charles Thurber) a lot immediately below, and con- 
tiguous to, the paper-mill of R. &.A. H. Hubbard, for the pur- 
pose of building a pistol factory. This business was conducted 
on the basis of Ethan Allen's patent revolving six-barrel pistol, 
until July, 1847, when it was, under the direction of the same 
firm, removed to Worcester, Mass. Their factory at the Falls 
then passed into the hands of R. & A. H. Hubbard, and thence, 
April 1, 1861, to the Falls Company. 

In reviewing the variety of manufacturing operations at the 
Falls, it is interesting to observe that the original business estab- 
lished there by Elderkin has held its ground through all the 
changes of two centuries. " King Cotton," even, has not been 
able as yet to dethrone his rival, " King Corn." Men now, as 
ever, are more solicitous for what they shall eat than for what 
they shall wear. 

I have been able only to glance at some of the external facts 
connected with the industrial life of this community ; and even 
these may appear to some as merely barren statistics, devoid of 
interest or instruction. That man, however, is little to be en- 
vied who can find neither interest nor instruction in tracing; 
the successive steps by which a community advances in the 
acquisition of wealth, and in the mastery of all those arts which 
underlie our modern civilization. There is another class of facts, 
relating to what may be called the internal history of these 
manufactures, which I am obliged entirely to omit. Could 
" Goodman " Elderkin step into Col. Converse's grist-mill, he 
would hardly recognize it as the legitimate descendant of his 
primitive mechanism. But Elderkin, I imagine, would be quite 
as much at home in the grist-mill as would Howland & Baxter 
in the weaving -room of the present Falls Company. The 
Directors of the Thames Company, when they voted to erect a 
mill with a capacity for two thousand spindles, but with only 
one thousand at the commencement of operations, little thought 
that some of them would live to see more than seventeen thou 
sand driven by the water-power then under their control. These 
comparisons remind us of the great improvements that have been 



APPENDIX. 117 

made in machinery, and show us how quietly, and yet how rap- 
idly, successive generations are devolving upon natural agents 
and mechanical combinations the toil that has engrossed the 
time and strength of mankind in past ages. The importance of 
recording all the facts relating; to both the external and internal 
history of the mechanic arts is but partially recognized. There 
are those who find much to interest them in tracing the progress 
of the fashions, the different styles of dress, the mere shifting of 
the scenery that attends the march of generations across the 
stage of life, while the great forces and instrumentalities that 
are elevating each generation above its predecessor in material 
wealth and moral power are entirely disregarded. 

The arts and the instruments of destruction, the marshalling 
of armies and navies, with all the cursed machinery of war, are 
far better understood than the blessed agencies and instrumen- 
talities of peace that bear the race so gently onward and upward 
through the ages ; just as the thunder-storm that shakes the 
firmament for an hour with its modicum of electric force, or 
the comet that flits across the heavens and startles the nations 
by its impalpable substance, is more regarded, and perhaps 
better understood, than the silent forces which urge revolving 
worlds through the infinite rounds of Neptune and Uranus, light 
up all the varied pageantry of earth and sky, the glorious pomp 
of day, the sparkling mysteries of night, and 

" Live through all life, extend through all extent, 
Spread undivided, operate unspent." 

But the importance of these agencies and the utility of re- 
cording these facts are becoming better understood. The powers 
of production are beginning to be recognized as superior to the 
arts of destruction ; and they have only commenced their benefi- 
cent career. 

" To martial arts shall milder arts succeed : 
Who blesses most shall gain the immortal meed." 

I cannot close these brief notices of the manufactures of the 
Falls, without noticing the striking resemblance between their 
history and that of similar organizations in Massachusetts. 



118 APPENDIX. 

The men who originated these movements in the two States 
were neighbors and friends ; the same difficulties were encoun- 
tered, and the same reverses experienced. The first capital of 
the Waltham, or Boston Company was wholly expended before 
a yard of cloth had been made. But the Waltham mills have 
taught important lessons to the world, and Waltham cottons 
have been sold at a profit under the shadow of the European 
factories. The Boston Company was first in the field, and 
naturally formed the van in the great industrial march which 
has marked the century. But the Thames Company was not a 
tardy follower in the career of improvement. There appears 
to have existed between all these pioneer organizations an en- 
larged spirit of liberality, by which each was enabled to profit 
by any improvement of the others. Some of the machinery 
used at Norwich was manufactured at Waltham.* Waltham 
was the mother of Lowell, and gracefully yielded her best me- 
chanic, Paul Moody, to the necessities of her aspiring daugh- 
ter. We detect in such portions of the histories of these com- 
panies as have come to light scarcely a trace of that narrowness 
and exclusiveness which characterize the progress of similar arts 
in England. 

Again, it should be observed that the organization of these 
companies was mainly due to family and kindred enterprise. 
Francis C. Lowell was brother-in-law of Patrick T. Jackson, 
and their " kith and kin " followed willingly their honorable 
and successful lead. The bare mention of the names of Apple- 
ton and Lawrence will suggest how important a part these fami- 
lies have acted in developing our manufacturing industry. The 
Thames Company was in a great measure a family enterprise, as 
the prominent names, during its whole history, will show. Sam- 
uel, John, and Henry Hubbard were the first purchasers of the 
property in Norwich which led to the formation of the Thames 

* It is worthy of remark that Ebenezer Hobbs, M. D., who early became 
the agent of the Waltham Company, was a classmate and friend of Mr. 
Greene, and, like him, left the profession to which he had at first devoted 
himself, to engage in the rising interest of the manufacture of cotton. 



APPENDIX. 119 

Company. Samuel Hubbard, it has been seen, was the brother- 
in-law of Benjamin D. and William P. Greene. James Lloyd 
and John Borland, who were also stockholders in the Thames 
Company, were related by marriage to names already men- 
tioned. 

It is painful to hear, as we sometimes do, sweeping remarks 
affirming the oppression and grasping spirit of our great manu- 
facturing proprietors. It is true their profits are sometimes 
large, but it is equally true that their losses are often disastrous. 
It is true that fortunes are sometimes made in a year, and it is 
no less true that they are often lost in an hour. Let any candid 
man, in moderate circumstances, follow carefully the history of 
many of our most prosperous manufacturing companies, and he 
will find much to make him satisfied with his lot. Let him 
consider the greatness of the original investment, the long time 
that must elapse before any profit is realized, the great variety 
of hazards to which this kind of. property is exposed, the daily 
anxieties arising from all these hazards, and he will feel, if he 
feels rightly, that though there may be Shylocks engaged in 
the mechanic arts as well as in trade and finance, yet, as a class, 
manufacturers must be ranked very high as the benefactors of 
their generations. 

The failure of the Thames Company, it will be observed, was 
a failure in form only, not in aim and achievement. The same 
names, the same objects, appear in the two companies that grew 
out of its ruins, as in the original organization. The manufac- 
ture of cotton at the Falls has not been a failure. The same 
gentleman who presided at the first meeting of the Thames 
stockholders, and bore his part so well in laying the foundations 
of a mill of two thousand spindles, lived to direct the move- 
ments of more than seventeen thousand on that very spot, and 
to render available a water-power of sixty thousand spindles in 
another portion of the city, and appropriating fourteen thousand 
to his own use. 

In tracing the operations at the Falls and at Greeneville, 
I have frequently been tempted to mention facts that would 



120 APPENDIX. 

present in a favorable light many interesting features of Mr. 
Greene's character. But this could hai'dly be done without 
reflecting upon the character or injuring the feelings of others. 
In no way could I do greater injustice to the memory of Mr. 
Greene than by recording any acts or achievements of his which 
would injure the honest fame of those who have gone with him 
to their final account, or produce an unpleasant sensation in any 
living bosom. There was no one feature of his character more 
interesting than his magnanimity towards those with whom he 
had come in collision in business transactions. I am the more 
inclined to this remark from the fact that I have heard it said 
that Mr. Greene was " vindictive " in his feelings towards 
those from whom he had occasion to differ in business rela- 
tions. Nothing could be further from the truth; yet it is 
not difficult to understand how a casual observer should form 
such an opinion. Such was the strength of his character and 
the harmonious action of its elements, that, in opposing what he 
deemed a wrong course of action or a mistaken policy, he might 
appear to direct against the wrong-doer what was only meant 
for the wrong or the mischief which he was perpetrating. He 
might seem like an avenging angel when his heart was that of 
a child towards the fellow-man with whom he was engaged in 
controversy. He always seemed desirous to put the most char- 
itable construction upon the motives and conduct of those with 
whom he came in collision. I have known him to go through 
weeks of anxious toil merely to be able to place a favorable con- 
struction upon conduct which had no other aspect than evil. If 
"to err is human, to forgive divine," it must be granted, that, 
while he claimed for himself no exemption from human frailty, 
he possessed in large measure that divine quality which in the 
Deity affords hope for our pardon. " Forgive us our trespasses 
as we forgive those ivho trespass against us " is a sentence that was 
often heard from his lips, and he would frequently direct atten- 
tion to the concluding clause. 

The Methodists were the first denomination to establish 



APPENDIX. 121 

religious worship at Norwich Falls. Their meeting-house on 
the Wharf Bridge, which was built in 1816, was carried away 
in 1823 by a flood. In the erection of a new church the atten- 
tion of this denomination was directed to the rapidly increasing 
village at the Falls ; and at this place, in 1825, their new house 
of worship was built and dedicated. This house continued to 
be used until 1853, when, on the dissolution of the Congrega- 
tional church, the society purchased of Mr. Greene their pres- 
ent commodious edifice on Sachem Street. The former house 
is still standing on Lafayette Street, and is used as a carriage 
factory. 

A Congregational church and societv were organized in 
1827, and a neat brick chapel erected the same year. This 
building is still standing, and is occupied as a storehouse by 
the Falls Company. Rev. Benson C. Baldwin was ordained 
as pastor, January 31, 1828. This connection was soon dis- 
solved. The Rev. Charles Hyde was installed in 1830, and 
continued in the pastoral charge about three years. He was 
succeeded by Rev. J. W. Newton, who was ordained in 1834. 
Rev. Thomas J. Fessenden was the last pastor of this church. 
Its members at length united with the other Congregational 
churches in the city, and the house of worship, as above-men- 
tioned, passed into the hands of the Methodists, in 1853. 

The attention of the Thames Company was early turned to 
the importance of improving the means of education in the 
community that was springing up around their mills. The 
basement of the Congregational Chapel was fitted up for a 
school-room, and regular appropriations were made from time 
to time to promote the interests of education. The district sys- 
tem was continued until 1856, when the present tasteful and 
convenient building was erected to meet the increased wants of 
the population. In the erection of this house, Mr. Greene ex- 
hibited his usual foresight and generosity. As from two thirds 
to three quarters of the expense of the building would be paid 
by the Falls Company, the approbation of Mr, Greene was 
16 



122 APPENDIX. 

considered quite essential to the success of the undertaking. 
The plan submitted for his approval was for a much smaller 
school-house, to be built upon a very limited lot. Mr. Greene 
disapproved entirely of this plan, suggested an enlargement 
both of the house and lot, at an expense nearly double of what 
had been proposed, and then gave it his sanction. 

In 1856-57 the present system of graded schools at the 
Falls was organized, under the direction of John N. Crandall, 
who remained the principal until the summer of 1857. He was 
succeeded by Arthur M. Wheeler, who occupied the post for 
one year. His successor was Benjamin B. Whittemore, who 
continued as principal until the spring of 1864, when he was 
succeeded by his brother, Nathaniel H. Whittemore, who re- 
signed in the summer of 1865, and was succeeded by the pres- 
ent incumbent, Henry C. Davis, formerly principal of the 
Greeneville schools. 

THE MANUFACTURE OF COTTON IN NORWICH. 

To Norwich probably belongs the honor of being only the 
second town in New England to establish the manufacture of 
cotton. The honor of being the first is very generally accorded 
to Pawtucket. But Mr. Samuel Batchelder, in his recent valu- 
able work on the " Introduction and Early Progress of the Cotton 
Manufacture in the United States," has shown that to Beverly, 
Massachusetts, and not to Pawtucket, Rhode Island, belongs the 
honor of establishing the first cotton factory in this country. The 
factory at Beverly was visited by Washington while on his tour 
through the New England States, in 1789, and its operations 
carefully noted. " In 1790," says Mr. Batchelder, in the work 
above mentioned, " a person who had been employed in the 
Beverly factory was engaged to go to Norwich, Connecticut, to 
put in operation some cotton machineiy, which was understood 
to be similar to that used at Beverly. This machinery was not 
built in this country, but was supposed to have been imported 
by some means from England. The parties engaged in the 
business at Norwich were Mr. Huntington, Dr. Lathrop, and 



APPENDIX. • 123 

others." The cotton factory here referred to stood nearly op- 
posite the present residence of Daniel L. Coit. No water 
was used, of course, hut the motive power was derived from 
human hands. I have seen some of the products of this fac- 
tory, and they do great credit to the skill of its operatives. 
Charles Bliss, Esq., has shown me specimens of cloth which 
were made here, and which were purchased in 1808 at sixty 
cents per yard. They are inferior in no respect to the best 
cotton fabrics of the present day. This factory, however, was 
not lon<r continued. Its successor was the Duck Mill of How- 
land & Baxter ; and this, as has been shown, was converted, 
in 1813, into a cotton-mill by William Williams, Jr., & Co. 
Then followed the Williams and Thames Companies. The 
Falls and Shetucket Companies now, I believe, monopolize the 
cotton manufacture within the limits of Norwich. 

Falls Company. Capital, $500,000. 

J. Baxter Upham, President. 
James Lloyd Greene, Secretary. 

Shetucket Company. Capital $500,000. 

J. Baxter Upham, President. 
James Lloyd Greene, Secretary. 

The above companies represent in Norwich, at the present 
time, the results of the beginning in 1823. That beginning 
was based upon a capital of $75,000, which has now increased 
more than tenfold. One thousand spindles, in forty years, 
have been multiplied to more than thirty-one thousand ; while 
an annual product too humble to mention in these days, has 
been augmented to more than ten millions of yards.* 

* During the present year, 1865, foundations are laying for a vast in- 
crease in the industrial facilities of this city. The Occum Company, with a 
capital of $100,000, is constructing a dam in the northeasterly section of the 
town, which will afford water-power equal to that of Greeneville. Two cot- 
ton and one woollen mill are already in progress ; and in the coming year 
another dam will doubtless be built, which will render available a still larger 
power. It is said by competent judges, that the amount of water-power in 
the vicinity of Norwich at present unemployed is equal to that of the whole 
of Rhode Island. 



121 APPENDIX. 

NOTE D. 

The first charter for a railroad between Norwich and Boston 
was granted at the annual session of the general assembly of 
the State of Connecticut, in May, 1832, upon the petition of 
Jabez Huntington and others ; and by its provisions William 
P. Greene, John Breed, William C. Gilman, Asa Child, and 
John A. Rockwell, their associates, successors, &c, were con- 
stituted a body politic and corporate, under the name of the 
"Boston, Norwich, and New London Railroad Company." 

In March of the following year, 1833, the legislature of 
Massachusetts granted a charter, by the provisions of which 
Samuel Slater, Stephen Salisbury, and Jonathan Davis, their 
associates, successors, &c, were constituted a body politic and 
corporate, under the name of the " Worcester and Norwich 
Railroad Company." 

By subsequent acts of the legislatures of Massachusetts and 
Connecticut, bearing date, respectively, April and May, 1836, 
the above-mentioned companies were united in one body cor- 
porate, under the name of the " Norwich and Worcester Rail- 
road Company." 

In the year 1837, the legislature of Massachusetts authorized 
the issue, upon certain conditions, of scrip or certificates of debt, 
in the name and behalf of the Commonwealth, for the sum of 
four hundred thousand dollars, to aid in the completion of the 
Norwich and Worcester Railroad. When application was made 
for the benefit of this act, a question arose as to whether the 
specified conditions had been complied with on the part of the 
Norwich and Worcester Railroad Company. The State author- 
ities refused the issue of the scrip to the treasurer of the Com- 
pany, and persisted in this refusal until Mr. Greene appeared 
before them and convinced them that the required conditions 
had been virtually and legally fulfilled. 

By acts of the general assembly of Connecticut, passed in 
1837 and 1839, the city of Norwich was authorized to issue 
certificates of debt to the amount of two hundred thousand 



APPENDIX. 125 

dollars, in aid of the Norwich and Worcester Railroad Com- 
pany. In the accomplishment of this object, so important to 
the success of the railroad, Mr. Greene bore a conspicuous and 
influential part. 



NOTE E. 



The following notices of Dr. Benjamin D. Greene are 
worthy of insertion here : — 

" Benjamin Daniel Greene died in Boston, 14 October, 
1862, aged 68 years. He was the eldest son of Gardiner and 
Elizabeth (Hubbard) Greene, and was born in Demerara, South 
America, — where his parents were then residing, — 22 De- 
cember, 1793. His father was well known as the wealthiest 
citizen of Boston. His mother, whose virtues and amiable 
character were long remembered by her contemporaries, and 
who was a sister of the late John Hubbard, of Boston, died 
during his early childhood. Her maternal cares were assumed 
and fulfilled by Elizabeth Copley, a sister of Lord Lyndhurst, 
the present Mrs. Gardiner Greene, between whom and her 
adopted son a cordial affection subsisted through life. The 
subject of this notice was fitted for college in the Boston Latin 
School, where a Franklin medal was awarded him in 1807. 
He held a respectable rank in his class, and graduated with 
honors. After leaving college he became a student at law in 
Litchfield, Connecticut, and entered upon the practice of his 
profession, which he soon relinquished for that of medicine. 
Passing four years abroad, he travelled extensively in Europe, 
and completed his studies in the schools of Edinburgh and Paris. 
Attracted by scientific pursuits, he was highly appreciated as a 
botanist, and became the intimate friend and correspondent of 
Sir William Hooker, and other men of distinguished attain- 
ments. He was a liberal contributor to the Boston Society of 
Natural History ; was its first President ; and his valuable library, 
uncommonly rich in scientific works, was ever open to the re- 
searches of his associates. He was a member of the American 
Academy of Arts and Sciences. 



126 APPENDIX. 

"He married, 30 May, 1826, Margaret Morgan Quincy, 
daughter of Hon. Josiah Quincy, of Boston." — Dr. Palmer's 
Necrology of Alumni of Harvard College. 

"At a meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, 
15 October, 1862, the President in the chair, Rev. Mr. Water- 
ston announced the recent decease of Dr. B. D. Greene, of Bos- 
ton, the first President of the Society. He spoke of the high 
personal character and scientific attainments of the deceased, 
and of the deep interest he ever felt in the welfare of the Soci- 
ety ; in consideration of which, he moved that a committee of 
two he appointed to consider the best plan of procedure in refer- 
ence to this loss. The President, Professor Agassiz, and Dr. 
Pickering followed, with remarks testifying to the great esteem 
in which Dr. Greene was universally held, and of his connec- 
tion with the scientific world. Dr. Gould and Professor Rog- 
ers were appointed as the committee, to which were afterwards 
added the names of Professor Agassiz and Mr. Waterston. 

"November 5, 1862. The committee appointed at the pre- 
vious meeting to take suitable action with reference to the 
decease of Dr. B. D. Greene, being called upon, — 

" Dr. A. A. Gould offered some preliminary statements with 
regard to Dr. Greene's connection with the early history of the 
Society, and then gave place to the introduction of resolutions 
by Professor W. B. Rogers. 

" Professor W. B. Rogers said, that, before submitting to the 
Society the resolutions which he held in his hand, he was de- 
sirous of making a few remarks on the important services and 
peculiar virtues of our late valued friend and associate. He 
felt, indeed, that it was especially incumbent on him to offer in 
person a tribute of honor and gratitude to the memory of the 
deceased, as, on a former occasion, when called upon to address 
the Society in public, his imperfect knowledge of its early his- 
tory had led him to overlook the distinguished part which Dr. 
Greene had taken in the formation and in the early nurture 
and guidance of the Society. 



APPENDIX. 127 

" It will be gratefully remembered by us all, that our associ- 
ate, feeble as was his health at the time, united with us on that 
occasion in the celebration of our thirtieth anniversary. Who 
can doubt that a nature less noble than his would have seen, in 
the omission here referred to, a just cause for displeasure as 
well as surprise ? But the large heart of our associate was too 
deeply interested in the good results of the zeal and liberality in 
which he had so earnestly shared to be much concerned about 
any apportionment of the honors so justly due to himself and 
the other founders and early friends of the Society. Soon after 
this occurrence, his usual kindly smile and cordial greeting gave 
touching proof that the much-regretted omission was as fully 
and freely forgiven as it had been unconsciously and innocently 
made. 

" Without attempting a review of the scientific attainments 
and services of Dr. Greene, for which only the intimate and 
honored associates of his labors would be qualified, Professor 
Rogers begged simply to bring to the minds of the Society two 
points in the life and character of their late friend and associate, 
from which, as he thought, the wealthy and the learned here 
and everywhere might reap instruction. 

"It is not often that the possessor of a liberal fortune is found 
giving his heart and time to the labor of scientific studies, which, 
however ennobling and replete with the purest of enjoyments, 
have, as we know, nothing in sympathy with the luxurious ease 
and brilliant excitements of what is called society. It is true, 
that, in the higher civilization to which the world is advancing, 
it may be confidently expected that the cultivation and promo- 
tion of knowledge and the nurture of all good enterprises will 
be recognized as the duty, and will become the noble aspiration, 
of all whose wealth offers them at once the leisure and the 
facility for such tastes and labors. Indeed, we already see 
among the most advanced communities bright auguries of this 
lofty social development ; and in our city and State we may 
proudly point to many an example of affluence ennobled by 
large and profound culture, as well as by unstinted liberality in 



128 APPENDIX. 

support of education and whatever else conduces to the happi- 
ness and progress of our race. Yet, it must be confessed that 
sucli tastes and labors as marked the life of our late colleague 
are still the exception, rather than the rule ; and we are there- 
fore especially called on to honor the memory of him who has 
furnished so beautiful and inspiring an example of them. 

" But qualities still more rare than that here alluded to char- 
acterized the pursuits and conversation of our late colleague. 
No one could fail to remark his singular freedom from the am- 
bitious impulses which, while they stimulate the labors of men 
of science, so often dim the clear beauty of their aspirations for 
what is true and beneficent. With him the love of knowledge, 
as gathered in the fields and in his precious library and herba- 
rium, was a sufficing incentive and adequate reward. Delight- 
ing to store his mind with the beautiful truths gathered from 
the ample sources around him, and ever ready to help others 
devoting themselves to kindred branches of inquiry, and indeed 
to any scientific pursuits, his singular modesty shrunk from the 
least public exhibition of his various knowledge, and, in the 
eyes of those who knew his solid and diversified culture, gave 
to his social character its most peculiar and winning charm. 

" Such were some of the services and characteristics of our 
late colleague, for which we owe him the tribute of our respect 
and reverence, and in testimony of which Professor Rogers 
concluded by submitting the following resolutions : — 

" 1. Resolved, That while it is the duty of the Society to hold in 
grateful recollection all who at any time may have participated in its 
labors or helped to enlarge its means of scientific usefulness, it is under 
especial obligations to honor the memory of the founders and early 
patrons of the Society, whose earnest zeal gave the first strong impulse 
to the pursuit of Natural History in this community, and whose lib- 
eral contributions and fostering care laid the foundation for those labors 
which have won for the Society an honorable place in the history of 
scientific investigation. 

"2. Resolved, That the Society, while deeply regretting the loss 
which it has sustained in the death of its late associate, Dr. Benjamin 



APPENDIX. 1129 

D. Greene, has a sad pleasure in placing on record an expression of 
its grateful and enduring reverence for his memory as one of the most 
zealous of its founders, as its first acting President, and as one of the 
most liberal of the patrons and co-workers of the Society. 

<r 3. Resolved, That in expressing our sense of the great value of 
the services of our late associate to this Society, and of his worth as a 
cultivator and promoter of natural science, we would dwell with affec- 
tionate interest on the gentle graces of character for which he was 
remarkable, and especially on the shrinking modesty and reserve 
which veiled so beautifully the knowledge and culture they were 
unable to conceal. 

" 4. Resolved, That the Secretary be directed to transmit a copy of 
these resolutions to the family of the deceased. 

" The resolutions were unanimously adopted." 

The following notice of Dr. Greene was taken by the Amer- 
ican Academy of Arts and Sciences, May 26, 1863 : — 

Benjamin D. Greene, whom we have lost from our botanical 
section, died on the 14th of October last. He was born in Demerara, 
during the temporary sojourn of his parents there, in the year 1793, 
and was graduated at Harvard College in 1812. He first pursued 
legal studies, for a time in the then celebrated law-school at Litchfield, 
Connecticut, and was duly admitted to the bar in Boston. He then 
studied medicine, mainly in the schools of Paris and Scotland, and 
took the degree of M. D. at Edinburgh, in the year 1821. While 
pursuing these studies abroad, his scientific tastes were strongly devel- 
oped, especially for botany, which, on his return home to the enjoy- 
ment of an ample fortune, now became the favorite pursuit of his life. 
His retiring, contemplative, and unambitious disposition rendered him 
averse to the toils, and wholly indifferent to the fame, of authorship. 
Of him it may especially be said, that he pursued his scientific studies 
for the pure gratification which they afforded him ; but those who 
knew him are well aware that no small part of that gratification came 
from the pleasure which he took in freely placing his observations and 
his collections in the hands of those who could turn them to best 
account for the advancement of science. Perceiving that the great 
obstacles encountered by the naturalist here were the want of books 
and of authentic collections, he early and steadily endeavored to sup- 
17 



130 APPENDIX. 

ply these desiderata, so far as he could, in one department, by gather- 
ing a choice botanical library, and a valuable herbarium, especially 
rich in authenticated specimens and in standard North American col- 
lections. These were most kindly placed at the disposal of working 
botanists, even those of distant parts of the country ; and, to secure 
their continued usefulness, were at length, by gift and by bequest, 
consigned to the Boston Society of Natural History, — of which Mr. 
Greene was one of the founders, and the first President, — to which, 
besides, he bequeathed a large legacy in money. 

In character, Mr. Greene was remarkably quiet and unobtrusive, 
yet highly sensible, cultivated, and discriminating. Eminently kind 
and disinterested, if he gave no thought to secure for himself a scien- 
tific reputation, he should all the more be remembered for the wise 
and considerate liberality through which he sought to promote the in- 
vestigations of others in a chosen department of natural history. 



NOTE F. 



It is proper to record here the several objects to which the 
smaller contributions of Mr. Greene were applied. 

Pianoforte (1857) $354.00 

Malby's Celestial and Terrestrial Globes (1857).. . 157.50 
Portrait of Mr. Russell Hubbard, in part (1858).. . 200.00 

Apparatus (1860) 600.00 

Minerals (1862) 75.00 

Contribution to salaries (1864) 250.00 

Apparatus from the old Norwich Academy (esti- 
mated value) 83.25 

$1719.75 



NOTE G. 



At the bicentennial celebration of the settlement of Norwich, 
on the 7th and 8th of September, 1859, Gideon F. Thayer, 
of Boston, so well known as the founder of the Chauncy Hall 
School, and one of the leading men of his profession, in re- 



APPENDIX. 131 

sponding to a sentiment, made the following remarks in regard 
to the manner in which Mrs. Greene had seen fit to celebrate 
the birthday of her husband, and of the city of her adoption : — 

" Sir, I am not a native of your beautiful city, nor connected 
with it by any of those ties or relations which give a claim to 
a part in this interesting celebration. 

" About a year since, I attended a meeting of the Ameri- 
can Institute of Instruction, held in this place. Arriving at 
ten o'clock in the evening, I could find no hotel accommoda- 
tions, and accepted the kind offer of a friend to conduct me to 
private quarters, and repaired with him to the mansion of one 
of your principal citizens. My reception was cordial, and the 
hospitalities which I enjoyed were delicate, varied, and princely. 
These, and the attentions bestowed upon me elsewhere by oth- 
ers, almost made me a self-adopted son of Norwich ; and, in 
some remarks which I was called on to make at the close of the 
session of the Institute, I stated that that was my first visit to 
your city, but it would not be the last by many a one. 

" Through the whole succeeding year I was anticipating the 
pleasure of this celebration, and heartily rejoiced, as the time 
drew near, in the reception of an invitation to be present from 
my large-hearted host of 1858. I am now enjoying a repetition 
of last year's liberality and kindness, which time seems only to 
have increased and extended. 

" Yesterday was not only the birthday of Norwich, but also 
that of my excellent host, whose estimable wife made a dona- 
tion, valued at seven thousand dollars, to the Norwich Free 
Academy, and I had the satisfaction to write my name as a 
witness to their signatures to the noble deed of gift. It was, 
indeed, a real gratification to me ; one that I should have deemed 
cheaply purchased at the cost of a journey from my home for it 
alone. This munificent donation, as you well know, consists of 
a dwelling-house and land for the use of the Principal of the 
Academy. How must every citizen of the place be inspired by 
the example, and incited to a zealous desire to support that which 
has been so nobly established." 



FUNERAL AND COMMEMORATIVE SERVICES, RESO- 
LUTIONS, &c. 



At a meeting of the Alumni of the Norwich Free Academy, 
held in the Peek Library, the following preamble and resolu- 
tions were unanimously adopted : — 

Whereas it has pleased Almighty God to take to himself the Hon. 
William P. Greene, late President of the Corporation and Board of 
Trustees of the Norwich Free Academy ; therefore 

Resolved, That, as Alumni of the Norwich Free Academy, we feel 
called to express our sense of the loss which we have sustained in the 
removal of one who was a principal founder and liberal patron of the 
institution in which we received our education. 

Resolved, That we shall ever cherish a grateful remembrance of the 
manly and Christian virtues which adorned Mr. Greene's character, 
the early interest which he manifested in improving the schools of this 
city, his constant attention to all the higher interests of this community, 
and that it is to these labors of Mr. Greene, in connection with his 
large benevolence, we are greatly indebted for our own means of 
moral and intellectual improvement. 

Resolved, That we deem it but a proper recognition of the virtues 
and services of Mr. Greene that some permanent record of his life 
should be made, which will inform those who shall come after us of 
the leading incidents of his life and the prominent features of his 
character. 

Resolved, That we invite Mr. Elbridge Smith, the Principal of the 
Free Academy, to deliver before the Alumni, at such time as may 
suit his convenience, an Address commemorative of the life and char- 
acter of our departed benefactor. 



APPENDIX. 133 

Resolved, That we tender to the family of Mr. Greene the assur- 
ance of our deepest sympathy in this their period of affliction. 

Resolved, That copies of these resolutions, signed by the chair- 
man and secretary of this meeting, be forwarded to the family of 

Mr. Greene. 

Nathaniel H. Whittemore, President. 

Henry E. Bowers, Secretary. 

Services in commemoration of the late Hon. William P. 
Greene were held by the Alumni Association of the Norwich 
Free Academy on the evening of January 25th, 1865, in the 
following order : — 

1. Hymn, by Miss L. A. W. Blackman. 

A house of mourning is this place, 

Grief fills each heart to-day ; 
For one we loved most tenderly 

Has passed from earth away. 

This life is but one constant change, — 

Friend meets with friend to part ; 
The sundering of the closest ties 

Must try each human heart. 

This honored servant of the Lord, 

Whose heart was filled with love, 
Whose life was crowned with noble deeds, 

Has gained his home above. 

His giant mind and manly heart, 

Though linked with feeble clay, 
With youthful vigor, zeal, and power, 

Bore the most perfect sway. 

This strength he gained from heavenly food, 

While yet he lingered here ; 
And thus his virtues brighter shone 

With every passing year. 



134 APPENDIX. 

His love to God and all mankind, 

His charity so free, 
His zeal to pave the way for youtL 

To blest eternity, — 

All find expression rare in these 

Our free and ample halls ; 
God bless his name, long may it shine, 

A sun within these walls. 

2. Prayer, by the Rev. Hiram P. Arms, D. D. 
8. Address, by Elbridge Smith, A. M. 
4. Ode. 

Not for him, but for us, should our tears now be shed : 
Mourn, mourn for the living, but not for the dead ; 
Let the dirge be unsung, and awaken the psalm ; 
No cypress for him who lies crowned with the palm ; 
Who has gone to his rest, 

When his labor was done, 
From the world he has blest, 
To the heaven he has won. 

Though the light of his life to our vision is o'er, 
The light of his spirit will burn evermore ; 
For truth in the world, like the sun in the skies, 
Fades only to brighten, and sets but to rise. 
It moves ever onward, 

Though dimmed is its ray ; 
And still on the earth 
It is day, — ever day. 

How calmly he uttered his beautiful thought, 
How meekly he bore all the honors it brought, 
How bravely he spoke to oppression and wrong ; 
In that calmness, that meekness, that courage, how stron» ! 
Though with tears for his parting 

Our eyes may be dim, 
For ourselves they are falling, 
Not for him, — not for him. 



APPENDIX. 135 

We bless thee, God, that the spirit is free 
Which was true to itself, unto man, and to thee. 
Thou hast called it from trial, released it from pain ; 
But its life and its teachings will ever remain. 
The good and the true 

Never die, — never die ; 

Though gone, they are here, 

Ever nigh, — ever nigh. 

At a meeting of the Trustees of the Norwich Free Academy, 
held at the house of Gen. William Williams on Saturday, June 
18, 1864, the following preamble and resolutions were unani- 
mously adopted : — 

Whereas it has pleased our Heavenly Father to remove from this 
life the honored President of this Board, William Parkinson Greene, 
Esq. ; therefore, 

Resolved, That, in the opinion of this Board, the institution under 
its care has lost, by the death of Mr. Greene, one of the most enlight- 
ened of its original founders, one of its most liberal benefactors, a most 
efficient presiding officer, and one of its foremost and most judicious 
friends. 

Resolved, That we record our most emphatic testimony to the great 
personal worth and distinguished ability of our departed President, his 
public spirit, his large benevolence, his warm and genial friendship, 
his firm integrity, his high moral courage, his ready appreciation and 
earnest grasp of every good enterprise, whether material, moral, or 
religious, his unfaltering devotion to whatever concerned the welfare 
of his fellow-men and the honor of his God. 

Resolved, That we tender to his bereaved family the assurance of 
our warmest sympathy in this hour of their affliction. 

Resolved, That, as a mark of our profound respect and affection for 
Mr. Greene, we will attend his funeral obsequies in a body, on Mon- 
day, the 20th instant. 

Resolved, That the usual session of the Free Academy be suspended 
on the day of the funeral, and that the teachers and pupils be invited 
to unite with the Trustees in their last testimonial of respect to their 
departed friend. 

Resolved, That the Secretary of this Board be directed to transmit 



136 APPENDIX. 

a copy of these resolutions to the family of Mr. Greene, and that they 
be published in the "Norwich Daily Bulletin" and in the "Norwich 

Aurora." 

William Williams, Chairman. 
Elbkidge Smith, Clerk. 

At a meeting of the Board of Directors of Thames Bank, 
held June 20, 1864, the following preamble and resolutions 
were passed : — 

Having heard of the death of our friend, William P. Greene, the 
first President of this bank, we feel impelled by the grief which afflicts 
us to give it utterance in the only way in our power. From the estab- 
lishment of this institution to the present time, in office and since he 
retired from it, Mr. Greene has been its firm friend, strong supporter, 
and ready helper. In our intercourse with him, in a business always 
large and sometimes perplexing, he has ever been open, candid, manly, 
and generous. He was to be depended on and correct. But as a 
friend, faithful, kind, cheerful, and affectionate, he made the deepest 
record on our hearts. We mourn our great loss; and therefore, 

Resolved, That, as a Board of Directors, we will attend his funeral 

this afternoon, and direct that the Cashier send to the family of Mr. 

Greene a copy of this resolution, with our sympathy and respect, and 

publish the same in the city papers. 

A true copy of record. 

Charles Bard, Cashier. 

The Common Council of the city of Norwich met at the 
council chamber on Saturday, June 18, 1864. Alderman 
Blackstone, in a few brief and touching remarks, announced 
the sudden death of the Hon. William P. Greene, and stated 
that the meeting was called for the purpose of taking such ac- 
tion relative thereto as might be deemed proper. 

Councilman Whittemore also made a few brief remarks eulo- 
gistic of the deceased, whereupon the following preamble and 
resolutions were unanimously adopted : — 

Whereas the sad intelligence has been communicated to this body 
of the sudden death of the Hon. William P. Greene, a former mayor 
of this city ; be it therefore 



APPENDIX. 137 

Resolved, That, in the death of this distinguished citizen, who for 
nearly half a century has been connected with almost every enterprise 
calculated to promote the prosperity of the town and city of Norwich, 
this Board is called to mourn the loss of one whose noble and generous 
heart was ever ready to respond to the numerous calls from the poor 
and needy, to make liberal contributions in aid of the various benefi- 
cent and public institutions in our midst, and that we shall ever re- 
member the manly virtues which have so endeared him to a large 
circle of friends and acquaintances. 

Resolved, That as a token of respect for one whose strict integrity 
and purity of life were so conspicuous in his daily intercourse with all 
who were brought in contact with him, and to whom this city is so 
largely indebted for the many public improvements suggested by his 
comprehensive and sagacious mind, this Board will, as a body, attend 
his funeral on Monday next. 

Resolved, That, as a further mark of respect to his memory, the 
city flag be displayed at half-mast during the day, and that our citizens 
be requested to close their places of business during the funeral cere- 
monies. 

Resolved, That we tender to the relations of the deceased our pro- 
found sympathy in this afflicting dispensation of Divine Providence ; 
and especially to our esteemed Mayor do we tender our heartfelt con- 
dolence in this bereavement, which has deprived him of a kind and 
affectionate father. 

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be presented to the fam- 
ily of the deceased, attested by the Senior Alderman and Clerk. 

Lorenzo Blackstone, Senior Alderman. 
John L. Devotion, Clerk. 



The attentive reader will notice some trifling discrepancies 
between the text of this Address and the Notes. These are 
due to the fact that in writing the text important information 
had not been received which was afterwards obtained. 

An error occurs on page 21. The name of Mrs. Greene's 
father is stated to be Louis Vassail Borland ; it should be Leon- 
ard Vassail Borland. 



Library of Congress 
Branch Bindery, 1901 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 785 119 6 



.' W S ■■■ ■■•■-'-•'■.■■■-.•• - Nvw 



* 







r<- » 



« 'V 






•srv 









, v:# 



• - 




! 



